Chapter 467

The night was not peaceful.

Noisy sounds were constant. Chen Qiusheng said that one would get used to it, but having lived peaceful days for many years, even he couldn't get used to it, let alone Chen Pingan and Zhao Chengan.

Qin Huai could actually go up and use the moonlight and firelight to see what was happening outside, but he didn't want to. It was better to watch less of this kind of immersive war movie; after all, the plot in a movie is just an actor's performance, while these spirits' dreams were things that had actually happened.

Qin Huai just waited quietly in the cellar with the three members of the Chen family. He waited until the sounds outside gradually disappeared and everything returned to deathly silence, and after the three fell into a deep sleep, he quietly climbed up through the wall from the cellar.

Qin Huai's range of movement in this memory was very narrow, only within a radius of about 10 meters centered on Zhao Chengan. Therefore, Qin Huai basically hadn't left Zhao Chengan's side these past few days; he was wherever Zhao Chengan was.

The 10-meter range of movement meant Qin Huai couldn't leave the house, but he could see that people had entered.

There were messy footprints on the ground, mixed with mud, muddy water, and bloodstains. Following the footprints, Qin Huai could see that the people who entered the house hadn't discovered the cellar where the three were hiding. The dried blood droplets accompanying the footprints indicated that the people who entered were in very poor condition.

Qin Huai walked toward the hall following the direction of the footprints, but was soon blocked by an air wall. The three were still sleeping in the cellar, and it was useless for Qin Huai to be anxious alone upstairs. After thinking it over, he could only sit and wait. At least there was light upstairs to see things; staying in a dark environment like a cellar for a long time was something Qin Huai, who was watching the memory, couldn't handle either.

Qin Huai sat quietly upstairs for who knows how long.

The day was as quiet as the night was noisy; one couldn't even hear the sound of birds, as if the whole world had been pressed with a pause button. If it weren't for the shadows of the trees in the courtyard moving with the angle of the sunlight, Qin Huai would have suspected that time had been slowed down.

The three of them slept until the afternoon. Chen Qiusheng was the first to wake up, and the first thing he did upon waking was to carefully open the cellar door. The cellar door was very hidden, looking at first glance like it blended into the bluestone floor tiles, made like a mechanism; without careful inspection, it would be impossible to discover.

Chen Qiusheng discovered the footprints on the ground.

"Father, what's happening outside now..."

Chen Pingan's voice came from the cellar. Chen Qiusheng hurriedly walked to the cellar entrance and made a shushing gesture to signal Chen Pingan to be quiet. Zhao Chengan poked his head out, but was pushed back down by Chen Qiusheng. He carefully closed the cellar door and walked forward lightly along the footprints.

Qin Huai wanted to follow, but since Zhao Chengan was still in the cellar, he could only watch from afar and listen with his ears pricked up.

Soon, the sound of a cellar opening came from not far away, and the people who entered hid in another cellar in the house.

"Who?"

"Don't move!"

"We..."

After a brief commotion, it returned to silence. Qin Huai couldn't hear what was said on Chen Qiusheng's side at all, only vaguely hearing a few keywords.

Since Qin Huai couldn't hear clearly, it was even more impossible for Chen Pingan and Zhao Chengan in the cellar to hear clearly.

The two waited in the cellar for more than two minutes, but couldn't wait any longer. Zhao Chengan pushed the cellar door open and crawled out. With a stride, he ran toward the other cellar, with Chen Pingan following behind, holding a stick in his hand.

Qin Huai also hurriedly followed.

The scene at the other cellar entrance was something no one had expected.

The cellar entrance was very dirty and messy, with many bloody handprints on the wooden boards. The strong smell of blood made Qin Huai suspect this was a crime scene.

The cellar door was wide open. Following the light shining in and the ladder below, one could see at least four or five people below, all injured, wearing uniform attire, and some even carrying guns on their backs.

They were wounded soldiers.

One of them was very young, looking very fair-skinned, not like a wounded soldier but like a student. His face had many small cuts, and he was talking in a low voice to Chen Qiusheng, with a tourniquet made of clothing tied around his left arm.

Seeing this young wounded soldier, Chen Pingan exclaimed in surprise: "Brother Sheng, didn't you evacuate with the university? Uncle and Aunt said you evacuated with the university a month ago, and they both left Beiping half a month ago."

"What evacuation? He ran off to join the army behind his family's back," Chen Qiusheng said in annoyance, pointing to the cellar. "We got separated during the retreat last night. Now the city is under martial law and we can't get out."

"Assistant Assistant Xiao Liu, tell me again, what is the situation outside now?"

Liu Sheng whispered and quickly recounted the situation of the past two days. In summary, it was one sentence: Beiping had fallen, and the army had retreated to Baoding. There were 5 people in the cellar in total; one had died of severe injuries this morning. Now these 4 were all top-tier dangerous individuals in Beiping city, and the Japanese army would definitely conduct a massive search for wounded soldiers in the city in the coming time.

"Pingan, I didn't know you lived in this house. We saw this house was empty last night, so we hid inside. Don't worry, we'll change places tonight and definitely won't drag you down," Liu Sheng said, lowering his head to look at his companions in the cellar. The companions didn't make a sound, just lying there with gray, defeated expressions.

Chen Qiusheng didn't speak. In such a life-or-death moment, no one was willing to risk their head to harbor wounded soldiers, even if there were acquaintances among them.

Chen Pingan hesitated. Qin Huai could see he wanted to say something, but he felt he was already a burden and had no standing to speak.

Zhao Chengan was a bit out of the loop. He looked at Chen Qiusheng, then at Chen Pingan, then at Liu Sheng, and then at the group of half-dead wounded soldiers in the cellar, and asked Chen Pingan directly: "Pingan, do you want to keep them?"

Chen Pingan hesitated for a moment and nodded slightly.

"Pingan!" Chen Qiusheng scolded sternly.

"Father, they also defended the city for us," Chen Pingan said in a low voice. "I wanted to leave but couldn't, and Brother Sheng could have left but didn't. Now the Japanese army must be searching the whole city. With Brother Sheng and the others in this state, where can they go if they leave tonight? Letting them go out is just sending them to their deaths."

Chen Qiusheng also hesitated.

Chen Qiusheng didn't know what to say and found it hard to make this decision, so he could only look at Zhao Chengan and ask him: "Ah Sheng, what do you think?"

Zhao Chengan only asked one question: "Do we have to feed them?"

"The food we brought is only enough for the three of us for half a year. If we have to feed them, we might only have enough for three months."

Liu Sheng's eyes, which had just ignited with hope, dimmed again. He whispered: "Uncle Chen, don't worry, we won't drag you down. We'll leave tonight..."

"Since there isn't enough food, can I go steal some tonight?" Zhao Chengan asked full of expectation.

Liu Sheng:?

Chen Qiusheng:...

Chen Pingan:...

The three wounded soldiers in the cellar:...?

Chen Qiusheng wanted to sigh, but he knew now was not the time to sigh. Every minute they stayed on the ground, the danger increased: "Fine, since Ah Sheng and Pingan both want you to stay, you can stay for now. These two days aren't peaceful; there should still be two bags of grain in your cellar, just make do with that for now."

"We don't have medicine here. Whether your wounds heal and whether you survive is up to fate."

"Assistant Assistant Xiao Liu, you go down too. We'll clean up your footprints and bloodstains. Don't come out these two days, and as for the rest..."

"Let's wait until we get through these few days."

Who would want to go out and die if they could live? Hearing Chen Qiusheng say this, Liu Sheng hurriedly said excitedly: "Thank you, Uncle Chen, thank you, Pingan, thank you, Ah Sheng!"

"Alright, go down quickly."

Watching Liu Sheng stagger down the ladder, Chen Qiusheng closed the cellar door, instructed Chen Pingan to hide back in the cellar, and he and Zhao Chengan stayed upstairs to clean up the traces.

Chen Pingan's movements were slow; if there were any sounds outside, he wouldn't be able to run back to the cellar in time. This kind of dangerous work could only be done by Chen Qiusheng and Zhao Chengan.

The two used the efficiency they had in the kitchen to nimbly clean up the traces left by the wounded soldiers. Even the traces on the outer door of the house were quickly and nimbly wiped away by Zhao Chengan, who was emboldened.

After cleaning everything up, Zhao Chengan and Chen Qiusheng hid back in the cellar.

The cellar was pitch black; without a light, one couldn't see one's fingers. Chen Pingan lit a kerosene lamp, and the faint light couldn't even illuminate the faces of the three.

Chen Pingan held the storybook he was supposed to read, but his mind wasn't on it at all. He was lost in thought for a long time before he inexplicably blurted out: "Father, did I do something wrong just now?"

Chen Qiusheng sighed, fished out a small piece of malt candy from the corner, broke it in two, stuffed one piece into Chen Pingan's mouth, and stuffed another into Zhao Chengan's mouth: "Eat something sweet."

"It's normal to want to save people; I wanted to save them too."

"Assistant Assistant Xiao Liu's father, Shopkeeper Liu, has treated our family well over the years. Every time we went to buy cloth, it was good material, and the school you attended was chosen because he said it was good."

"They defended the city for us; there's no reason we should drive them out to die just because it couldn't be held."

"It's just..."

"I know, it's just that there isn't enough food, and at times like this, it's up to me!" Zhao Chengan answered preemptively.

Chen Qiusheng laughed and scolded in annoyance: "You talk too much."

"Alright, Pingan, stop spacing out. We don't have much kerosene, and this lamp won't last long. Hurry up and read the storybook."

"Okay." Chen Pingan held the book closer to the kerosene lamp and began to read word by word in a soft voice. His tone was very flat, as if this were just an ordinary night of three people gathered together reading a storybook by a kerosene lamp.

If his hands holding the book hadn't been trembling slightly, this might really have been just an ordinary day.

The three hid in the cellar for more than half a month. As for why it was more than half a month, it was because even Qin Huai found it hard to say exactly how many days it had been. The flow of time during this period accelerated like watching a movie. Qin Huai felt it was just in the blink of an eye; sometimes he watched Chen Pingan read stories in the cellar, and sometimes he felt the cellar was too dark and went up to get some air. Days rose and set, and time just passed like that.

During this period, two groups of people entered the house. They weren't there to search for people, just purely to search for valuables. They didn't search very carefully, and neither of the two cellars was discovered.

After being looted twice, the house became very safe because everyone knew it was an empty house that had been looted twice and whose owners had fled to Jin Ling.

After hiding for a long time, Chen Qiusheng finally gathered the courage to go out once to check on the condition of the wounded in the other cellar.

The situation was very grim.

Initially, 5 wounded soldiers were hidden in the cellar, and one died that very night from severe injuries. In the past half month, two more wounded soldiers didn't make it due to wound infections.

Liu Sheng was still alive; the wound on his arm hadn't become infected, but it hadn't fully healed either. The two survivors in the cellar didn't dare to go out, and they didn't dare to throw out the bodies of the three who had died. It was midsummer, the weather was hot, and the bodies of the three had long since decomposed in the damp and dark cellar. Plus, the two ate, drank, and relieved themselves in the same cellar, living with rotting corpses and excrement all day long, and the environment was so dark and sunless...

Just hearing Chen Qiusheng describe it, Qin Huai could imagine what kind of hellish misery this was.

Chen Qiusheng suggested that Liu Sheng and the other could appropriately come out of the cellar to walk around on the ground to avoid going crazy in such an environment, but Liu Sheng refused.

Until their wounds healed, they were two ticking time bombs; as long as they showed their faces, they would bring disaster to the Chen family.

Zhao Chengan asked in confusion: "Then how can their wounds heal faster?"

Chen Pingan sighed: "There's no doctor now, and we don't have the conditions to decoct medicine. According to Father's description, the other person's wound should also be infected. Unless there is penicillin, otherwise..."

"What is penicillin?" Zhao Chengan asked.

"A type of medicine, only found in hospitals," Chen Pingan said. "For their kind of gunshot wounds and trauma, only penicillin can cure them if they want to heal quickly without infection."

Zhao Chengan nodded as if he understood.

In the days that followed, the three of them spent most of their time hiding in the cellar. Because they had been hiding for so long, they were unclear about the situation outside, and with the grain gradually decreasing, even the most steady Chen Qiusheng became a bit restless after a long time.

After the last candle burned out, Zhao Chengan proposed that he wanted to go outside to steal some candles, and by the way, steal some medicine and firewood, and see what the situation was like outside.

Grain could be eaten raw if absolutely necessary, and Chen Qiusheng had prepared many steamed buns in advance, so eating them hard didn't matter, but Chen Pingan's medicine was needed every day. The consumption rate of firewood was much faster than Chen Qiusheng had expected; there was almost no firewood left in the cellar.

Chen Pingan was also almost out of medicine.

Chen Qiusheng initially disagreed. After Zhao Chengan pestered him for a few days, Chen Qiusheng nodded in agreement. Zhao Chengan, who still hadn't figured out what the situation was, happily took advantage of the night to leave the house for the first time.

It was quiet outside.

There were still bloodstains on the roadside that hadn't been washed away. Some houses were intact, some were unrecognizable, and some had even been burned into a pile of ruins.

Zhao Chengan had long since memorized and identified the medicinal ingredients in Chen Pingan's prescription. As soon as he went out, he headed straight for the pharmacy. As a result, when he arrived, he found that the pharmacy had been looted, the doors were broken, and there were old, uncleaned bloodstains on the counter where medicine was dispensed.

Zhao Chengan tried to dig out some usable medicine from the cracks in the medicine cabinet, but to no avail, because he couldn't identify them at all. He could only scratch his head and change to the next one, leaving behind a sentence:

"Looting gold and silver jewelry is one thing, but why loot medicine too?"

The next one wasn't any better.

In the course of one night, Zhao Chengan ran through almost all the pharmacies in Beiping that he had an impression of. Only two didn't look like they had been looted by a swarm of locusts, but there wasn't much medicine in the cabinets either.

Zhao Chengan couldn't gather the medicine needed for Chen Pingan's prescription at all.

The night was more than half over. Zhao Chengan could still continue to steal, but a clever woman can't cook without rice; there were no more pharmacies he knew of.