"Go and have a look first?" Han Sanshi asked tentatively.

What can Hong Dashou and Han Wushi do? They are already here, and it is already afternoon. Except for the rice balls in the morning, they have been hungry for most of the day.

What's more, at least the Nanchuan store, which is still burning, is much warmer than the outside. If it gets dark, if you stay in the minus ten degrees Celsius weather outside all night, it will definitely become a popsicle. You must find a shelter from the wind and rain.

Make a fire.

"Pick up a stick that fits your hand, just in case." Hong Dashou bent down and searched for it on the roadside.

The knives, spears and other things that were taken from the hands of the officers and soldiers were thrown into the fire and burned. They did not dare to carry the government's standard weapons with them to avoid getting into trouble.

Han Sanshi and Han Wushi saw Hong Dashou weighing a stick, and they followed suit. One broke off a branch from a dead tree on the side of the road, and the other randomly dug out a piece on the ground.

One guy is better than no one at all. The three of them walked into the town holding sticks.

The Nanchuan store has no walls, and there are no willows planted all over to provide shelter. There is not even a ditch surrounding the market town. It is like a cooked egg with the shell stripped off, directly exposed to the outside.

Hong Dashou was not very familiar with this place, but the Han brothers were very familiar with it. The two of them seemed to have familiar shops in the town, so they walked to the town knowing the roads.

Although the fire burned all over the town, the outline of the street was still there, but the buildings and houses collapsed. The road was also winding and winding, and it was not easy to walk. From time to time, some broken bricks and tiles were dumped on the road.

After walking around for about ten minutes, the three people came to a place without a front door. The courtyard wall had not collapsed, but the courtyard door was missing. Most of the houses in the courtyard collapsed and smoke was still rising.

"When I came here more than a month ago, it was still a big store, but now it has become like this..."

Han Sanshi sighed, as if he couldn't believe it. After all, things he was familiar with suddenly became unfamiliar, and that kind of emotion was also very complicated.

Nowadays, this place can no longer be called a hotel. Except for a livestock shed in the corner, which is still intact, the entire hotel building is half exposed to the sky. I don’t know how long the remaining rooms can last, as they are crumbling.

Han Sanshi waved his hand and asked Han Wushi and Hong Da to wait outside. He rolled up his baggage on the ground, relaxed his shoulders, and entered the hotel lightly.

I didn't dare to move around, so I just took the stick and poked it on the left side and scratched it on the right side. In fact, there was nothing interesting to see. The door was burned down and the contents inside were clearly visible.

The three of them walked around the main room of the hotel, followed by the kitchen, warehouse, and cellar.

The kitchen and warehouse were burned down together. It looked like there was almost nothing that could be used. Even if there was anything, it was definitely burned down.

After Han Sanshi pulled hard in the ruins of the warehouse for a while, a charred door was exposed. The only difference between it and the tattered debris around it was that there was an iron ring on it.

I tried it with a wooden stick first, and it didn't seem to be burned. Then I touched it lightly with my hand. The iron ring was a little hot, but it could be pulled.

After confirming that there was no problem, Han Sanshi pulled the iron ring and lifted it up with force. But maybe it was because the fire had deformed the door or something, and it didn't open immediately.

He simply inserted the wooden stick into the iron ring and pried it hard. The underground door was pulled open.

The cellar is not deep, and there is a steep slope to go up and down. This is a cellar that is used daily. There is no need to check for toxic gases or the like. You only need to open it to disperse the smoke.

After waiting for a while, Han Sanshi took the lead and bowed down to the ground. The skylight outside shone into the cellar, and he could barely see clearly inside.

"Yes, yes!" Han Sanshi's voice came from inside.

So Hong Dashou and Han Wushi put all the packages at the entrance and went down together, only to find that the cellar was still intact. It had not been looted or damaged, and the contents were still there.

After looking carefully, I saw that there was a half-grass bag of coarse salt, weighing at least forty or fifty kilograms, which was worth ten taels.

Others include a jar of soybean paste, which is a must-have item for most families, not surprising. There are also two straw bags of rice, each bag weighing sixty or seventy kilograms.

There is a water tank in a conspicuous place, which is full of water, but the water is dirty and there is a lot of black ash floating on it. It is really gratifying to gently stroke the black ash away.

It’s actually half a jar of rice cake!

Like many places in the Huaihe Yangtze River Basin of China, during the Chinese New Year, rice flour is ground, rice cakes are beaten, and they are made into strips. One piece is stacked one on top of another, placed in a water tank in a well-shaped shape, and then sealed with water. This kind of rice cake soaked in water,

Can last for more than a month.

The best way to make it delicious is to cut it into slices, not too thin, put it in a hot oil pan with melted sugar, and fry it slowly. It must be golden on both sides, but it’s almost ok. It’s okay even if the corners are burnt. Wow, that taste,

Beautiful!

“Tonight’s food is in order!”

However, the hands of the three of them were very dirty and they did not dare to go into the water to pick out rice cakes with bare hands. They retreated first and placed their things in the barn.

Although the shed is a bit smelly, at least it has a roof cover, and it can block the wind on three sides. Only one side of the shed is exposed to the wind through the stone trough. It's no problem if you just use two wooden boards to block it, and you can live in it.

The well in the courtyard has not been damaged, and there is a wooden bucket tied with a long rope beside the well, but there is no such labor-saving well windlass. But it is not difficult for three grown men to carry buckets of water.

First, get water to wash your hands and face. Although it is late winter, the well water is not bitingly cold. Anyone who has used well water knows that well water is cold in summer and warm in winter. This temperature does not mean that the well water is hot, but it means that the well water is cold.

It's just not as cold as ordinary water.

Another bucket was brought up, and the cow drank a few mouthfuls to quench his thirst. The sky was getting dark.

The three of them took action, found some broken doors, windows and wooden pillars, and blocked the unobstructed courtyard door. The wall was still there, so there was no need to bother. In this way, the hotel became a small world, isolated from the outside world.

With water, there is no need to worry about fire. There are wooden structures with sparks everywhere, and you can start a fire by just breaking them into two sections.

But there was no pot or ladle, so I had to string together an earthen pot used for feeding animals in the corner to boil a pot of boiling water, add a large spoonful of soybean paste, and the hot soup was ready.

Han Wushi has a knife about ten centimeters long, not even a dagger, which he uses to cut rice cakes. It cannot be fried without oil or a pan, but the rice cakes themselves are cooked. String a stick on it and bake it on the fire while it is still hot.

, the lips and teeth remain fragrant.

The three of them had a good meal, and after a good meal, they lay down on the haystacks and added firewood to the fire, which was warm.

The fatigue of two days and two nights finally swept over them crazily, and it didn't take long for the three of them to fight with their eyelids. But Han Sanshi finally became mature and stood up and walked around to prevent himself from falling asleep and let Hong Dashou and Han Wushi rest quickly.
Chapter completed!