It's really hard to just farm peacefully.

Chapter 140

After estimating that it was about midnight, Jiang Yan held Chunying's arm tightly, and the two of them sat on the steps outside the courtyard, holding their breath and paying close attention to the movements in the city.

More than half an hour had passed since the refugees from outside the city broke in. The burning houses were no longer concentrated in the inner city but were spread everywhere, which meant that more civilians had become targets of the attack.

Jiang Yan was very worried about the safety of the elders including Jiang Da, Sun Yun, Jiang Qi, Gaoni, Chef Sun and Aunt Wang, as well as whether Dongshan Village far away in Rongcheng County could safely avoid the impact of this chaos.

Yile pushed the door open and walked out, handing two cloth towels to Jiang Yan and Chunying: "Cover your noses, the smell here is unpleasant."

Jiang Yan glanced at Fu Nulang and her servant, who were also covering their mouths and noses and following Yi Le closely, and took it and thanked him.

Under the circumstances at that time, Jiang Yan and Chunying didn't know where they could hide in a relatively safe place. Yile took the initiative to step forward and took them to a remote courtyard near the small city gate on the west side of the city.

In the second half of their journey, they could occasionally see people hiding everywhere with their bags on their backs, but the area around here was completely empty, with no one in sight.

At first, Baoqin, in order to ease Fu Nulang's nervousness, forced herself to find a topic to break the silence: "Yile, is this your home? Well... the mansion is really too busy to give you a day off. The smell of dust has spread outside the courtyard, hehe..."

The smell of dust? Jiang Yan felt the stench rushing into his nose and looked at Baoqin in confusion.

Baoqin regretted her slip of the tongue after she finished speaking. Yile came to Heding Prefecture to escape war, but moved back in when she was seven or eight years old. After that, she had never heard of any relatives outside the prefecture, and she rarely left the prefecture. So where did she get the house?

"It's not my house." Yile knocked on the gate but received no response, so he pushed it open and led everyone inside. "In the past... it was a place for the poor people in the surrounding area or outsiders to temporarily store the bodies of their relatives and friends."

The front yard was very small. After only a few steps, Baoqin's hands were already on the door of the main house. Upon hearing this, she turned her head and looked at Yile with some fear: "In here?"

Fu Nulang, Tingying and Huanyan all took a few steps back, pushing Jiang Yan and Chunying in the back row out of the courtyard.

Yile said calmly, "Judging from the smell of the courtyard, it should have been used for the same purpose."

Seeing Baoqin looking so guilty that she was about to cry for disturbing him, and seeing that the others behind her were also very uncomfortable, Yile paused and said comfortingly:

"We came here to seek refuge. Regardless of whether there are still people in the house..., we did not intend to offend them. Their relatives and friends will understand."

What's there to understand? Isn't it just some kind of special-purpose charity cemetery?! Jiang Yan had originally planned to ignore it, not listen, and not think about it, thinking that it would be over soon. But the more Yi Le tried to comfort her, the more anxious she became. She felt that the courtyard was gloomy and she didn't want to go in at all.

After Yile finished speaking, she took two steps to the side, wanting to open the door to the side room so that everyone could go in and rest. Fu Weixin immediately stopped her: "No need, I'm fine staying outside in the yard, very fine."

……

Perhaps it was because the place was remote, or because there were some taboos, or perhaps both, Jiang Yan just held Chunying's arm, dozed off, woke up, observed the surrounding safety situation, and then dozed off again.

The city was in chaos and burned for three days, until the early morning of the fourth day, when lightning, thunder and heavy rain put out the remaining fire.

During these three days, the seven of them stayed in the yard or outside the yard, filling their stomachs with wheat grains carried by Jiang Yan, Chunying and Yile, until it rained and they were forced to take shelter in a side room.

The side room was not spacious, and in the center was a poor quality wooden coffin. The coffin had no nails sealed and did not emit a more noticeable odor, so it should not have been used, but none of them dared to push it open to confirm.

Several people huddled together, and suddenly Baoqin suggested in a tense voice, "Let's talk."