Chapter 8 Sacrifice

Even in the 21st century, eating one's own children is not impossible.

Similarly, Shen Zijie just pondered for a while, carefully compared the details with Wen Youqing, and then came up with his own thoughts.

He said seriously, "Don't alert the enemy about this. Madam, just continue to take care of the water. I will secretly investigate their intentions first."

When he lowered his eyes, he saw a shallow handprint-shaped water stain on Wen Youqing's desk. His heart moved slightly, and he covered Wen Youqing's hand tightly. Sure enough, it was cold and wet.

Shen Zijie looked into Wen Youqing's eyes and said firmly, "It will be fine."

After that day, Wen Youqing never sent anyone to Alu's house to ask again, forcing himself to concentrate on placing the gauze. It wasn't difficult to do; the gauze just had to be placed there, and no other manpower was needed.

However, there were many complaints from the people. Some families secretly took apart the gauze and stuffed it into their cotton-padded jackets to keep warm.

Wen Youqing didn't care. Some people need a long-term vision, but the people can't even wear warm clothes, so how can they go far?

This method worked in her time, and it will surely work here too. It just takes time, but someone will see it.

What worried her even more was the custom of cannibalism. Where did it come from? The people here truly believed in gods and Buddhas, like the Goddess of Harmony. Every home had a small shrine dedicated to her, and even their words invoked the blessings of the Goddess of Harmony. If the gods and Buddhas allowed cannibalism...

Probably not...

After a few days of numbness, Wen Youqing was not the type to sit idle. In addition to paying attention to the daily life and farming in various places, he was secretly keeping an eye on the movements of the Guo family.

She had heard quite a bit of news. The Guo family was considered a newly rising wealthy family in Xunyang City. The previous one was the Zhu family, but they were later raided because of some collusion with the Xiongnu Shanggu.

After all, the Guo family is a new business, and although their business is not very busy, they still have two or three visitors every day, and they even have the habit of chanting scriptures in the early morning.

If it is not for basic food and clothing, then it is a perverted habit catalyzed by the social environment.

After a few days of observation, Wen Youqing discovered the trick. The Guo family's泔水袋 came more frequently than those of other families.

He squatted until his legs were numb, and then he waited for the people who were dumping the slop to leave. Then Wen Youqing tiptoed up, endured the foul smell of the slop, and started searching inside with a branch.

Suddenly, she felt someone behind her, and she immediately dropped the branch and ran to the side, but it was too late. She only smelled the scent of powder, and then she felt weak in her limbs and fell down.

—

The night falls fast and deep in the North.

The north wind blew sand particles into Shen Zijie's face. He tightened the reins and saw the outline of the fort in the distance undulating like an animal's back in the twilight. The old servant suddenly grabbed his bridle and said, "Master, look carefully!"

Several dark red streaks snaked through the sand, like veins traced on silk by a vermilion brush. Shen Zijie leaned over to take a closer look, his fingers stiffened by the late spring chill nearly touching the dry, rotten-wood-like sole of a baby's foot. He jerked upright, a sour feeling welling in his throat.

"Things are tough here, but it's not to the point of cannibalism." The old servant untied the bronze amulet from his waist. The inscription "Wang, the Commandant of Agriculture" shone coldly in the snow. "Last month, General Wang Rong executed several wealthy families, claiming they were repairing Shouchun's defenses."

It should be so, as the Huns in the north frequently raided the border.

Suddenly, a fire lit up in the corner tower of the fort, and the sound of wailing was close at hand. A hundred gray faces emerged from the sand. The man at the front held up a swaddling child, his lips, dry and purple, as he spoke: "Please give me some milk..."

Shen Zijie winked at the old servant, who hurried over to take the child. He saw that the child wrapped in the swaddling clothes was actually a three-year-old boy, with a strange blush on his little face.

"There is a Keats Hospital in the city, why don't you go there?" Shen Zijie asked in a deep voice.

"...Who are you?" The leading man suddenly became alert. "Are you from the imperial court?"

Before Shen Zijie could answer, the hundred or so people suddenly went crazy and rushed towards him like a tide.

"Young master, be careful." The old servant drew out a dagger and chopped off the leading man's arm, but the man seemed to feel no pain and kicked the old servant hard in the heart.

Shen Zijie tied the baby in front of him and immediately drew his sword, saying, "I am the governor of Xunyang Prefecture. If you have any grievances, please report them to me immediately. If you insist on doing so, don't blame me for killing you without mercy."

This sentence is like throwing a grain of sand into the Gobi Desert, without any ripples.

Shen Zijie sighed lightly, and with one knife he chopped off the head of the unruly man who was fighting with the old servant. The head rolled in the sand and was covered with a layer of brown-red sand.

He couldn't escape after all. Shen Zijie lit the signal flare and rode his horse into the refugees.

When the last red plum blossom bloomed on the sand, he recognized the man pierced by the spear.

Before his death, the Zhu family's son was clutching a piece of flesh torn from the baby's leg. Shen Zijie glanced at the baby, who was crying so weakly, and the wound on his leg from protecting the baby, and sighed again. If Wen Youqing saw it, she would ask again.

Suddenly, the aroma of sweet wine wafted through the air. Chen Zijie looked up and saw a man in the corner tower of a nearby fortress, lying leisurely on the city wall, watching for who knows how long.

Wang Rong saw that Shen Zijie had finally noticed him and waved, "After you finish the killing, come up and have a drink."

Shen Zijie shook off the bright red blood stain on the knife and said, "You saw it and didn't help."

What responded to him was the open corner door and a chuckle, "Brother Shen, have you read so much that you can't even hold a knife?"

-

"Damn, lunatic! Lunatic!" The sharp voice was like nails scratching glass, sawing back and forth in the cave, waking Wen Youqing up.

It was still a little dark in front of his eyes. Wen Youqing moved slightly, and the back of his neck was instantly rubbed by the iron chain and blood oozed out.

Torches cast distorted shadows on the stone wall, making the clay statue's eye sockets seem to flicker with will-o'-the-wisps. She stared at the statue, unable to discern its deity. Suddenly, she noticed the dark patterns on its cuffs—a lotus with open eyes, an upside-down Bagua symbol, and a crow with three tail feathers.

It was exactly the same as what Madam Wang had dried that day. It was a unique indigo pigment of the Yingchuan Wang family. Even the Cui family could only watch.

And their family members were stationed at the border a few miles away... She moved her lips silently, and her wrists, which were locked with chains, trembled slightly.

Suddenly, the sound of broken bones came from the dark depths of the cave, and the voice that had just woken her up disappeared in an instant.

Wen Youqing turned back and immediately closed his eyes and pretended to be unconscious.

In the halo of the oil lamp, the middle-aged man who had chatted with her at Gao's house that day walked in, holding a ceramic bowl. His wrist was wrapped in a blood-soaked hemp rope. He said with regret, "Madam, isn't it good to be at home wearing gold and silver and living a life of luxury? Why do you have to meddle in other people's business?"

She expressed regret, but her hands did not stop moving. Her thick fingers pinched open her jaw and poured the fishy-smelling medicine into her.

Wen Youqing resisted the urge to vomit, and tasted a familiar bitter taste on the tip of his tongue - it was the Five Stones Powder, a secret recipe of the Suzhou Xie family. Anyone who took it would have a flushed face and become unconscious.

In the past few years, some young men from wealthy families liked to use this to harm young men from good families, regardless of whether they were from wealthy families or not. It was not until they raped a girl from the Wang family that they stopped.

I didn't expect that this thing still existed and was kept by the Wang family.

Wen Youqing naturally had to trick him, "The Wang family has given you so much for doing these tricks, and our Shen family can afford it too."

Just as he finished speaking, there was a sudden sound of wooden planks moving from the cave ceiling, and a few rays of light leaked in. In just a moment, Wen Youqing saw clearly that this was not a cave, but a cellar.

The visitor must be someone of status. The middle-aged man hurriedly prostrated himself on the ground, his forehead pressed against the blue bricks. "Welcome the Holy Envoy."

A pair of black brocade boots came down the wooden ladder. The Taotie pattern embroidered with gold thread was faintly visible in the firelight, and it seemed to suppress the man so that he could not raise his head.

Wen Youqing's pupils shrank. These were the kind of cloud-stepping boots worn by the assassins of the Cui clan of Boling. To wear such boots so brazenly before a living person like her meant she was in grave danger.

"Tomorrow at 3:30 AM, take her to Cangwu Mountain." The Holy Envoy's voice sounded like it had been pulled out of an ice cellar. "The Lord wishes to see the sacrifice placed in the cauldron with his own eyes."

The middle-aged man was trembling with excitement, and his eyes were filled with infinite fanaticism as he looked at Wen Youqing.

"Enter the cauldron? Aren't you afraid that my husband's parents will come looking for you? Let me tell you, I..." Wen Youqing said with extraordinary calmness.

"Madam Shen, come here? How could they have that ability? Even if they came, what could they do? Besides, you have always been restless and have ruined many good things for my young master. Today, you should atone for your sins and use your life as a small sacrifice for the stability of the border." The Holy Envoy said coldly. Even with the mask on, one could feel his disdain.

"Oh? Then aren't you afraid that a sinner like me will pollute your sacred cause by entering the cauldron?" Wen Youqing didn't know what they were planning, but everyone can make up a story.

Hearing this, the middle-aged man looked at the Holy Envoy with concern. Seeing that the Holy Envoy did not react at all, the man lowered his head again and dared not look again.

"A mere woman, trying to trick you into believing something? How could you possibly know something that even your idiot husband doesn't have the right to know?" The Holy Envoy squatted down, his eyes filled with coldness. He even disrespectfully lifted Wen Youqing's collar to peer inside. "You only know how to put on makeup every day. You're useless."

Wen Youqingsi didn't react at all to the insult. Instead, she looked him straight in the face and said, "Really? Then we'll see."

After the footsteps faded away, Wen Youqing said to the Guo family, "Hey, your holy Goddess of Harmony, are you really going to be defiled by someone like me who was unfaithful before marriage?"

The Guo family member paused for a moment, then slowly climbed up the wooden ladder. "Your servant is indeed a clean one, but unfortunately his status is too low. The Holy Envoy must have his reasons for saying so."

After the person left, Wen Youqing reviewed the situation in his mind.

The tokens of the major families appeared before her in a grand manner.

"I see." She laughed suddenly, the iron chains echoing against the stone wall. The indigo belonged to the Wang family, the Five Stones Powder to the Xie family, the Cloud-Stepping Boots to the Cui family, the Seven Treasures Necklace to the Zhuge family—these aristocratic families, who had been vying for centuries, had woven a web of cannibalism in Xunyang, the northern border.

It's nothing more than money and power.

A family of the Shen family's stature actually has no right to participate.

What they were planning was definitely not happening in Xunyang, but somewhere bigger and farther away.