Grandpa Meng listened to Old Jin's words and couldn't think of a feasible solution for a while.
However, he still asked the refugees kneeling on the ground to get up.
"Elder brothers, this mountain path is quite rough. Everyone, please get up and speak first."
An elder kneeling on the ground heard a familiar voice from the opposite side and looked up.
When the elder clearly saw Grandpa Meng's face, he was so surprised that tears streamed down his face. "Lord Meng, it's Lord Meng. Heavens, am I dreaming? We've really met Lord Meng again. We're saved!" After speaking, the elder wailed on the ground.
The elder's cries confused the people around him.
"Old Song, have you lost your mind? Where is Lord Meng?"
The elder who was crying on the ground, with mud smeared on his face from tears and snot, wiped his eyes and pointed in Grandpa Meng's direction. "You old fellows, take a good look. If it's not Lord Meng, then who is it?"
After speaking, the elder continued to cry. This time, he cried because they were saved.
Hearing Old Song's words, the other elders also looked in the direction he pointed.
As soon as they looked, several elders rushed forward as if they had seen their own parents.
Old Jin and a few soldiers on guard couldn't stop them.
"Lord Meng, your humble servant is Zhang Dadan from Wangyue Village."
"Lord Meng, your humble servant is Liu Laoda from Liujia Village!"
"Lord Meng, your humble servant is Old Lin from Linjia Lane!"
Grandpa Meng: He hadn't heard anyone call him Lord Meng for a long time. Hearing it now felt like a lifetime ago.
The elder who had been crying profusely on the ground finally stopped his lamentation and said, "Lord Meng, I am Song Bantou."
"Song Bantou?" This familiar title caused the old man's expression to change completely.
The refugees following behind the elders, upon hearing that Lord Meng was here, also rushed forward desperately.
"Lord Meng."
"Magistrate Meng."
"Lord Meng, Lord Meng!"
For a moment, the mountain pass descended into chaos.
The old man hadn't expected that the familiar smiling faces he once knew now looked gaunt and withered.
"You, shouldn't you be in Qingzhou Prefecture?"
"Lord Meng, you may not know, but Qingzhou suffered a great flood this year, and the entire county town was submerged."
"Did the current magistrate not lead everyone in self-rescue? And, and..." In front of the people present, Grandpa Meng swallowed the words "the imperial court."
At his age, he feared nothing, but he couldn't drag his descendants into trouble again.
They had already suffered enough because of him.
"That magistrate didn't believe there would be a flood at first, so we don't know where he was washed away to."
"As for..." Song Bantou also imitated Lord Meng and omitted the words "the imperial court."
"They didn't care about us escapees at all. After the riverbank broke, the county town became a vast expanse of water. Later, some brave ones went back to check, and our county town was gone."
"Gone?" Grandpa Meng thought of the twenty-odd years he had spent there, the old streets he was familiar with... his heart ached.
"Everything was gone. At first, we wanted to save ourselves for our homes, but... they did nothing. Relying only on us penniless commoners, we could only give up."
"Later, we gathered the few hundred survivors and sought refuge in the nearest prefectural city."
"There was nowhere to take us in."
"We walked all the way, being driven away by people, until we reached here."
"We never dreamed we would see Lord Meng again." Kuaishu Pavilion
The thirsty, hungry, and exhausted Song Bantou could no longer hold on after saying this and fainted.
"Song Bantou, Song Bantou."
"Grandfather, Grandpa Song fainted from thirst and hunger."
"Xiao He, quickly go and fetch water."
"Yes, I'll go with some people now."
"Ci'er, hurry back and have your mother and the others cook more congee."
"Yes, I'll go tell my mother now."
The remaining elders, after listening to Grandpa Meng's instructions, also fainted with relief.
After another bout of busyness, seeing the eager eyes, Grandpa Meng decided to let them temporarily stay in the courtyards first.
When the elders had all woken up one by one and were given clear water, Grandpa Meng immediately reminded them: "Everyone, don't call me Lord Meng anymore. I haven't been a magistrate for many years."
"But we..."
Qi He was still quick-witted. Seeing everyone's troubled expressions, he offered a suggestion: "Everyone can call Grandpa Meng 'Town Chief Meng' from now on, because Grandpa Meng is the Town Chief of our Qingxi Town."
"Yes, then we will call him Meng... Town Chief."
These refugees from Qingzhou, except for Old Song who was a yamen runner head, were all ordinary commoners.
On their journey, the imperial court ignored them, and the local officials passed them around. When they were on the verge of despair, they saw their former Magistrate Meng.
What did it mean to be reborn from despair? They were experiencing it now.
Lord Meng had been a good magistrate to them before, and now, according to the young man's words, he was the town chief here.
Therefore, Lord Meng must also be a good town chief.
Song Bantou knew Lord Meng the best. As magistrate and head of yamen runners, they had worked together for over twenty years and interacted daily back then.
When Fu Yu arrived with a donkey cart to deliver rice congee, Song Bantou's two sons cried again upon seeing Fu Yu.
They had grown up together, and seeing each other again now felt like a lifetime apart.
Fu Yu: "We were separated for five or six years after the incident at home. I never expected to meet again, separated by thousands of miles."
"I truly never expected that my family would still be alive to see you and Lord Meng." Song Dalang couldn't continue speaking here. He hugged his only son and started crying again.
Fu Yu: When they left Qingzhou, Song Dalang had three sons. Now, seeing this child, thin and bony, he could only guess that it wasn't the eldest.
He dared not think about where the other two children had gone.
"Let's eat first."
"Mm."
"Everyone has been hungry for a long time. This meal, everyone can only have one bowl."
After Fu Yu finished speaking, he personally served the rice congee for everyone.
Everyone was hungry. Song Bantou took the rice congee and saw the golden millet congee in the wooden bowl. He felt like crying again.
"How long has it been since we last ate this pure millet congee?"
Ever since Qingzhou was flooded, they hadn't eaten millet congee. Zhang Dadan, with millet congee in his mouth, was reluctant to swallow, fearing he was dreaming.
Song Bantou, in front of everyone, finished his bowl of millet congee in a few mouthfuls and, like everyone else, licked the bowl clean before putting it down.