The girl hid in the ancestral hall for several days.

The back hall is the fourth entrance to the courtyard, and few people come here.

But in order to avoid being discovered, she did not leave the room at all, and did not even dare to open the door or window to get some air, for fear of being discovered.

Tie Zhu would secretly bring her food every night and take the filth out of the house to clean up. Both of them were extremely cautious.

But one day.

There was a bored child who secretly followed Tie Zhu back to the ancestral hall. Then he discovered that he had something delicious but he hid and ate it alone.

So when he rushed over to make a fuss, he accidentally discovered the girl hiding in the house.

"Huh? I thought you had already left the village. Those people have left, why haven't you left yet?"

The child was so naive that he never thought about the girl's situation. He simply thought that the girl was still staying in Osmanthus Village and had not left.

When the girl heard this, she didn't know what she thought of, but she covered her mouth and began to cry suppressedly. Her tears were so pitiful.

The child was suddenly panicked and confused.

Tie Zhu said quickly: "You must not tell anyone about my sister's here. Someone outside seems to be trying to arrest her. I heard Mr. Wang saying this when I was walking on the road two days ago."

The child scratched his head in confusion: "Oh, why do you want to catch her?"

Tie Zhu put his hands on his hips and said threateningly: "Don't worry about why, you can't tell this matter, otherwise I won't let you leave this room!"

"Oh fine."

Although the child responded, he actually didn't take Tie Zhu's threat seriously and thought it was just a joke between friends.

After the girl heard what Tie Zhu said, she actually wanted to keep the child.

But she also knew that this was impossible!

Because this child is the child of the head of Guihua Village, if he is lost, Guihua Village will definitely search for him vigorously, and there is no guarantee that he will find this place!

So they couldn't do anything to this child.

All we can do is keep brainwashing him.

The two of them lobbied, prayed, threatened, and repeated for an hour and a half...

It wasn't until the night got darker and they saw that time could no longer be delayed that they reluctantly put the impatient child back.

After the child left, the girl's eyes were dull.

She felt that she should quickly find another place to hide, but thinking about it carefully, those people must be guarding the entrance of the village, and there were barren mountains on all sides. There were probably people on the mountains looking for her.

Seeing that she was in a bad mood, Tie Zhu came over to comfort her.

"He actually has a pretty good personality. Since he promised not to tell anyone, he definitely won't tell anyone. You don't have to worry."

"Tie Zhu, how is your painting going?"

The girl suddenly asked.

Tie Zhu took out a piece of paper from his clothes bag, with lines and boxes drawn crookedly on it. In some places, the lines overlapped, making the overall picture very messy.

Tie Zhu said embarrassedly: "I didn't dare to draw outside, so I made a note to draw it again when I got back to the house. But after I got back to the house, I couldn't remember some parts clearly."

The girl looked at the painting blankly, despair rising in her heart.

She forced a smile with difficulty and said: "It's okay, you're pretty good at drawing like this. Just draw the route from the ancestral hall to the entrance of the village."

Although the houses in Guihua Village are similar, there are a lot of small and narrow alleys extending in all directions. These alleys are reserved for roof drainage.

If she wanted to leave, she would definitely not be able to take the main road even at night.

You can only escape through these small alleys.

…

The girl was in fear for two days.

And because she was worried that the child would tell the truth, she carefully slept under the bed for the past two days, and her whole spirit was tortured and tense.

It wasn't until she was sure that the child really didn't tell anyone about it after he left that she felt a little relieved.

And tonight was also the time when she was preparing to leave the village.

She planned to take action in the middle of the night. Even if there were guards at the village gate at that time, they would feel sleepy and take it lightly.

For this reason, the girl got enough sleep during the day.

At night.

When she woke up, she saw a small basket already placed by the window, which was probably the dinner Tie Zhu had prepared for her.

But the accident also happened at this time.

The noise came from outside.

The door was knocked open by a huge force, and the fragile door latch had no resistance at all. The person who broke through the door was like a steel wall covered with thorns!

"ah--!"

…

In the alley not far away.

The boy was imitating how he would lead his sister to escape later, when he heard a scream coming from the direction of the ancestral hall.

He subconsciously ran two steps that way.

But then, he saw several strong adults holding torches and breaking into the ancestral hall. The expressions on everyone's faces were gloomy and terrifying.

These sights stopped him abruptly.

Tie Zhu's heart was pounding, and suddenly, he heard someone calling his name.

As if this was a signal, the boy turned around and ran away, disappearing into the alley in the blink of an eye like a loach!

The villagers looked for the iron pillar in the ancestral hall, but when they couldn't find it, they ignored it.

After all, it was just a naughty child. He was probably bewitched by that woman and hid him. And now that he has been caught, it doesn't matter where the child without his parents is.

No one cares.

night.

Heart-wrenching cries could be heard on the streets of Osmanthus Village, from the houses in the east to the houses in the west. In the end, maybe something blocked their mouths, and the voices became quiet.

But in fact, no one cares about what's going on outside.

People who have nothing to do with it have their doors closed, have gone to bed early, or are idle mending and making utensils.

The movement outside seemed unheard.

The joys and sorrows of people are indeed different from each other.

…

Tie Zhu hid in the alley, his little body trembling constantly, and he even shed tears in fear.

When he heard the sister's cry, he quickly covered his ears, but when the sound completely disappeared, he hurriedly looked in that direction again.

I don't know how long it has been.

The young boy seemed to have mentally prepared himself. He crept out of the alley and re-entered the ancestral hall through the back door.

The building was empty as people left, and the ancestral hall was silent.

He carefully walked to the room where the girl had been hiding, and saw that the floor was in a mess, with sawdust scattered, tables and chairs overturned, several pieces of osmanthus cake falling on the floor, and some of them being trampled into mud.

Tie Zhu had a complicated look on his face, and he stepped forward and picked up two intact pastries.

Looking at the sweet-scented osmanthus cake in his hand, he then looked at the room in front of him. After hesitating for a long time, he finally seemed to have made up his mind.

Tie Zhu put the cakes into his pocket, and then ran into the reception hall in the front yard.

The dining hall is very large and there are no barriers such as doors.

Green smoke curled up above the memorial tablet.

Tie Zhu first bowed to the pile of memorial tablets with an embarrassed look on his face, muttering "offended", "please let go", etc., and the next moment, he poured out more than a dozen cigarettes inserted in the incense burner.

Pulled it out.

Before I left, I might have thought that I had already done everything, so why not...

So Tie Zhu couldn't help but pick up the apple on the offering table - even if the food as tribute was spoiled here, no one was allowed to eat it secretly.

And if there is less food on the offering table, the villagers will first suspect that he will be the one to blame.

There is no reason or need for reason.

Tie Zhu put the already shrunken apple into his mouth, took a hard bite, and quickly ran back to the messy room in the back hall.

He gathered the cigarettes into a bunch and approached the bed tent with trembling hands.

The thin bed tent was quickly ignited by sparks, and weak flames slowly burned upward along the cloth lines.

The iron pillar blew a few more times, and the fire became more and more intense.
To be continued...