Chen Lan, carrying a child and a large bundle, knocked on the guest room door. "It's me, I've brought you some clothes," she said.
After a moment, the door slowly creaked open. A girl with a round face answered. Seeing that Chen Lan was alone and holding a child, she opened the door and let her in.
Chen Lan handed the bundle to the round-faced girl. "Have you all finished bathing? Quickly take off your wet clothes and change into the dry ones from the bundle, or you'll really catch a chill."
The round-faced girl didn't reach for the clothes but looked at the child. It was the long-faced girl, who had been quiet until now, who took the bundle from Chen Lan.
Chen Lan noticed her looking at the child and explained, "I just fed the little one some goat milk and cleaned him up. He's wearing my son's old clothes, which fit him perfectly. I changed him into them. You all should hurry and change your clothes, inside and out. Don't catch a chill and spread it to the child."
As she was speaking, the woman with the injured arm came out of the washroom. She saw Chen Lan holding her son, who had been cleaned and was now snuggling in Chen Lan's arms, quiet and well-behaved.
Without a word, she stepped forward and knelt down, kowtowing to Chen Lan. Chen Lan was startled and immediately stepped aside, reaching out with her free hand to pull the woman up.
"Sister, what are you doing? Don't do this, don't scare the child. Besides, we're liberated now, kneeling and kowtowing is not the custom. Get up quickly, change your wet clothes, and let me check your arm. Let's see how bad it is and if it needs more medicine."
The woman stubbornly insisted on kowtowing to Chen Lan. Her voice trembling, she said, "Benefactor, thank you!"
Chen Lan waved her hands in alarm. "Sister, you can't say that. The whole country is liberated now, we are all equals. You can't keep kowtowing, and there are no 'benefactors' anymore. We call each other 'comrade' now."
With that, she pulled the woman up forcefully, preventing her from kowtowing further.
Once the three women had tidied themselves up, Chen Lan, holding the clean and well-dressed child, led the three women, now clean and in dry clothes, out of the guest room. The three women followed Chen Lan nervously into the living room, where Mama Liu and Hu Yuzhen had already placed three large bowls of steaming egg noodle soup on the dining table. Su Dan Novel Network.
Everyone looked at the three women. After washing their faces and changing into clean clothes, they no longer looked as disheveled as when they first arrived. Instead, they appeared delicate and charming.
Mama Liu saw them approaching and warmly called out, "Perfect! You've finished washing up! The noodles are just cooked! You must have gotten wet in the rain. Hurry and eat some hot noodles while they're steaming, it'll make you sweat and prevent a chill."
The woman with the injured arm looked at the child in Chen Lan's arms. Chen Lan quickly said, "I just fed the baby some goat milk. He's not very hungry right now, and we can't feed him anything else for fear of indigestion, which would be troublesome. You eat your fill first, or the noodles will get cold. Don't worry, he won't go hungry. I'll steam him some egg custard before he goes to bed."
After settling the three women and the child, Chen Lan and Xu Mingxuan each took a child and went upstairs to the bedroom. Xu Mingxuan went to the bathroom to wash up, while Chen Lan coaxed the twins to sleep.
When Xu Mingxuan finished washing up and entered the bedroom, he saw Chen Lan sitting on the bed, leaning against the headboard, waiting for him. He sat down beside her, also leaning against the headboard.
Seeing Chen Lan looking at him, he sighed. "Lan'er, I know you want to ask what's going on with these people. To be honest, I really don't want to talk about it, because their experiences were too tragic!"
Hearing Xu Mingxuan say this, Chen Lan became even more curious. She continued to gaze at him intently, waiting for him to continue.
Seeing her intense curiosity, Xu Mingxuan sighed again and continued, "Lan'er, you've probably guessed by now that those three women and the child were captured by the bandits you discovered and taken to their lair."
He sighed again. "We received a report from Erhu, and we rushed with a platoon of men to the vicinity of the cave and set up an ambush. We arrived just as dusk was settling, visibility was very low, and the area around the cave was overgrown with vines. We couldn't get a clear picture of the situation inside the cave. But we couldn't just wait, as we worried there might be other exits, so we decided to send men to quietly scout the situation inside the cave. This is where your infrared telescope came in very handy. Even in the dark, it allowed us to see clearly."
The final reconnaissance revealed that there were not only a few bandits in the cave, but also other bandits, women, and children. We couldn't risk a direct assault, so we had to arrange for sharpshooters and have Xiang Dong and Erhu set up with crossbows near the cave, ready to take them down at any moment. Once they were in position, we began to call out: 'People in the cave, listen! We are... You are surrounded. Lay down your weapons immediately and do not resist pointlessly. Surrender your arms.'"
The fanatical bandits, knowing there was no escape, used the captured women as hostages, aiming their guns at them, hoping to threaten the border guards into letting them escape.
Xu Mingxuan paused to catch his breath. "Especially one tall bandit and one short, stout bandit. They were the most ferocious. The two of them held a pregnant woman at gunpoint with grenades, demanding that our soldiers let them go. How could our soldiers let them go? If they escaped, who knows how many more people they would harm in the future? While the two sides were in a standoff, no one expected that the woman they were holding hostage with grenades quickly pulled the pins on two grenades and held them tightly, taking the two of them with her in a suicidal act. Several people standing together were killed instantly. That pregnant woman died tragically, a loss of two lives. The bandits were stunned by the explosion and momentarily let down their guard. The three women I brought home today also turned and fought against the bandits who were holding them. Our ambushing forces also seized the opportunity to snipe three bandits, and captured three alive. Fortunately, with the help of these three women, we were able to quickly end the battle and reduce casualties. We also found quite a few guns, ammunition, money, and pelts of hunted animals in the cave. It's estimated they stole a lot of winter provisions from the hunters in the surrounding mountains. The child was hidden in a cabinet by his mother. Because we arrived so suddenly, the bandits were caught off guard. As the bandits rushed to escape, they forgot about him, otherwise, that little fellow would have also faced a terrible fate."
We cleaned up the battlefield, buried the poor woman, and then escorted the bandits and the three women and child back to the camp that very night.