The Zhou family also prepared to check on Su Muqing, worried the intense lightning might have frightened her.
No sooner had the two made a move than gusts of demonic winds blew over. After such a long drought, the ground was covered in dust. Instantly, sand and stones flew through the air, and the sky was filled with yellow dust.
Dust entered the eyes of Zhou and Wang, making it impossible to open them. They could only cover their faces with their sleeves and find places to hide. Others clung tightly to people or objects nearby, preventing themselves from being blown away by the strong winds.
Inside the space, Su Muqing endured unimaginable pain for an unknown duration before feeling her body slowly recover.
Upon closer inspection, her clothes were now tattered into a fringed style. The visible veins and meridians on her body had turned silver-white, resembling a galaxy and shimmering with fine light. What was most startling was her abdomen, which appeared to have a large tear, revealing a hollow interior. She had nearly fainted from shock when she first saw it.
Meanwhile, outside the space, everyone, to avoid the dust blinding their eyes, had their eyes tightly shut and their heads bowed low, thus missing the subsequent scene.
In an instant, the sky was filled with specks of light, surrounding the mass of lightning still hovering overhead. Then, like a hand, it lifted the lightning and directed it towards the roof of Su Muqing's ox cart. The current, as if alive, burrowed through the cart roof. Strangely, the straw mat on the roof remained undamaged.
After a while, Su Muqing, inside the space, discovered a mass of lightning slowly moving towards the empty cavity in her abdomen. It then began to surge erratically within her body.
She quickly followed the prompt on the screen, sitting cross-legged to regulate her breathing. After the lightning surged wildly for a period, it gradually condensed into a small mass and hid within her body.
As the light and color on her meridians gradually faded, her lower abdomen returned to its original appearance. Apart from her clothes, which were blown to shreds, there were no external injuries at all!
Su Muqing raised her right hand, concentrated her energy, and clenched her palm slightly. A small cluster of lightning materialized in her palm. She casually threw it out.
It struck the axe from before. The wooden handle was split in two by the lightning strike and was still emitting black smoke! She had mastered it so quickly? She had expected it to take three to five years to succeed!
Su Muqing was still excited when she suddenly twitched her nose. Good heavens! What was that smell? Had someone’s sewer pipe burst? Or was there a stinking ditch in the space?
The answer was of course no, because she discovered that her recently recovered skin was now covered in a thick layer of grime, which could be picked off in large chunks!
That smell! Σ_(꒪ཀ꒪」∠) Puke~ It was utterly overwhelming!
Su Muqing glanced outside through the space. Why had everything suddenly become so hazy? She could only see vague outlines, with dry grass and leaves occasionally drifting past her eyes. Where did such strong winds come from?
Her gaze swept around before locking onto Lin Rongrong and the little milk bun. Seeing them taking shelter with Madam Wang, she figured they hadn’t returned to her ox cart yet and likely hadn’t realized she was missing.
Therefore, she quickly took off her clothes, which had been reduced to rags, opened two barrels of purified water, gave herself a quick bath, and washed her hair.
Then, she found a set of her own original clothes from the chest – a relatively understated smog-blue, nine-quarter-sleeved ice silk cotton and linen thigh-length pantsuit, with excellent drape.
By this time, the strong winds outside the space had also died down, but the air was still filled with dust, so visibility remained very low.
After the dust had completely settled, Su Muqing, with her still-damp hair wrapped in a dark blue cloth, got out of the ox cart, throwing the tattered clothes far away.
Everyone else looked as if they had just crossed a desert, covered in thick dust. While everyone was patting the dust off their bodies,
Su Muqing walked to the very rear of the convoy. Then, with a flip of her palm and a silent incantation of "summon wind," she flicked her palm outward.
A fierce gust of wind swept rapidly across the side of the cart, carrying away the thick dust and blowing it in another direction!
"Muqing, Muqing, where are you? Aunt Zhou, have you seen Muqing?" Su Cuiping’s voice sounded from not too far away.
Madam Zhou’s ox cart was closest to Su Muqing. After tidying up, she went to check on her ox cart. To her surprise, it was empty. She thought Muqing had gone to Madam Wang’s.
Madam Zhou replied, "No! I just checked, and no one was on the ox cart. Didn’t she go to your place?"
"I'm here!" Su Muqing quickly waved her hand in response and then emerged from behind the last ox cart.
"Why did you go over there? Why are you covering your head? Is your head injured?" Su Cuiping said, reaching out to remove the cloth and take a look.
Su Muqing dodged Su Cuiping’s hand. "No, no, no. I’m not injured, I’m just blocking the dust. Look how much dust there was! Come on, you should also wrap your heads quickly!" She then ran back to the ox cart and took out a few more cloths, giving one to each of the three of them, letting them tie them as well.
The sky was already dark, and the torchlight was insufficient, so Su Cuiping and the others did not notice anything different about Su Muqing.
The convoy, which had originally planned to find a place to rest, no longer needed to search. After everyone had brushed off the dust, they rested on the spot for a while before driving the ox carts to continue their journey.
Su Cuiping and the others no longer ran around aimlessly. They directly climbed onto the ox carts, preparing to rest. Su Muqing used a knife to cut a large hole on both sides of the bedsheet, creating windows.
Her actions pained Madam Wang greatly. Such good bedsheets, now with two large holes. Even if they were sewn up tomorrow, they wouldn’t look as good.
With the increase in transportation, the convoy’s speed significantly increased. The men pushing carts could also switch places and sit on the carts, allowing everyone to rest and feel less tired.
After a night of traveling, by the Mao hour (around five in the morning), the sky had already brightened considerably. They reached the Stone Dou Chang.
This area was originally mostly wasteland, and now, under the drought, it was even more desolate. Fortunately, another two hours of travel would bring them to the county seat of Shiqiao County.
The convoy proceeded along the official road. As they got closer to the county seat, there were more refugee convoys like theirs on the road. Besides refugees, there were also many displaced people in even worse conditions than them.
Su Muqing suddenly woke up and pulled aside the bedsheet to look outside. There were many more people on the road now, all with dusty faces and disheveled appearances.
Some were pushing carts, some were carrying poles with shoulder loads, and some were carrying baskets, filled with all their belongings, hurrying forward.
Those with less grain saw Su Muqing’s convoy with abundant supplies and flocked forward. Some offered to sell their children, others offered to sell themselves as slaves or servants, just as long as they could get a mouthful of food.
The ones being sold were mostly young girls, ranging from seven or eight to over ten years old. A person could be bought for just one dou of grain.
One dou of grain? Only twelve catties of grain to buy a living person? That was a human life!