Liu'er and Lin Yan'an were both startled. When they turned around, they saw a woman with disheveled hair and no clothes on, holding a tinderbox in her hand and staring at them.
The woman's exposed skin was covered in bloody wounds, and in some places, maggots were even crawling around.
Lin Yan'an was so frightened that he immediately closed his eyes and almost screamed, but Liu'er covered his mouth tightly.
The woman beside them stared blankly at the two, seemingly not understanding what they were doing.
She simply put away the tinderbox in her hand and, like them, squatted down in the bushes.
Only when the patrol team moved away again with their torches did Liu'er release her hand from Lin Yan'an's.
However, Lin Yan'an kept his eyes closed, not daring to open them, for fear of seeing the terrifying scene he had just witnessed again.
On the bloody wound, countless maggots were wriggling. Just thinking about what he had just seen made him shudder.
Liu'er forced herself to calm down, looked at the woman beside her in the darkness, and whispered, "Are you from this Hundred Nights Pavilion?"
It's all her fault for being a little distracted and not noticing this person approaching.
If the other party had wanted to harm them, she might already be dead.
The woman paused, seemingly not understanding her meaning, until Liu'er pointed to the brightly lit pavilion and asked again, "Are you from this building?"
The woman then replied, "Yes."
However, the voice still contained no emotion.
After thinking for a while, Liu'er took off her cloak and draped it over the woman, saying, "Then why are you here, and why are you so injured?"
The woman looked at the cloak she was wearing for a while before saying, "They didn't want me anymore. They threw me out. I didn't know where to go, so I hid in that room."
Are you also people who were kicked out?
Liu'er was taken aback.
Lin Yan'an was also stunned for a moment, but finally suppressed his fear and realized that the wounds on the girl in front of him must have been inflicted by his patrons and the guards in the building.
He was probably beaten up because he failed to satisfy the customers.
Because they hit her too hard, they didn't expect the wound to be so difficult to heal and the treatment would cost a lot of money, so the people in the brothel simply threw her out of the brothel.
Rather than wasting money on treating the other person, it's better to just abandon them.
Such things are common in brothels, but seeing it with his own eyes this time surprised him.
The wounds on the woman's body were so horrifying that he couldn't imagine what kind of beating she had suffered, yet she appeared before them as if nothing had happened.
Seeing that the two didn't speak, the girl suddenly smiled and said, "Why don't you hide in that house with us? It's safe there, there's food, and no one will chase you away."
After saying that, she grabbed Liu'er's arm and tried to lead her into the dark room.
Seeing this, Lin Yan'an frowned and was about to speak when he heard Liu'er hesitate and say, "I'll go with her to take a look. You stay here and keep watch?"
Lin Yan'an glanced at the two people in the darkness, hesitated for a long time before nodding, "Be careful."
Seeing that Liu'er didn't refuse her tugging, the girl suddenly became happy. However, seeing that Lin Yan'an didn't move, she asked with some doubt, "Isn't he going?"
Liu'er simply shook her head. "He's not going."
Seeing this, the girl didn't say anything more, and pulled Liu'er towards a dark and secluded place not far away.
Perhaps she had been here many times before, because the woman was very familiar with the place.
Even without a tinderbox, they still managed to get Liu'er to the house, which was covered in cobwebs and on the verge of collapse.
Once they had finally arrived at the house, the woman lit the tinderbox again and blew on it.
Suddenly, a dim light illuminated the room, which could hardly be called a room.
The woman was very happy. As she bent down to enter the half-collapsed house, she said to the people inside, "I have found my companions again. You don't need to be afraid."
However, there was no response from inside the house.
Liu'er swallowed nervously, then mustered her courage to peek into the room, only to be nearly paralyzed with fear by what she saw.
Inside the room lay three women who had been dead for an unknown period of time.
Like the girl, those people had bloody wounds all over their exposed skin, and those wounds were infested with maggots.
As soon as you get close, the stench of decay from inside the house immediately fills the air.
The woman seemed oblivious to everything, sitting beside the three corpses and smiling, "What would you like to eat? There's plenty of food here."
As she spoke, she pointed to the bucket of leftover food in the corner, which was already smelling rotten.
Liu'er felt a little nauseous, but her eyes involuntarily reddened.
The smile on that girl's face was exactly the same as the smiles she had seen on the faces of the girls in the brothel earlier—it was devoid of any emotion, just a forced twitch of the lips.
They looked both pitiful and somewhat eerie.
Those people from Xiliang will not have a good death.
Liu'er cursed angrily in her heart, and was about to speak when she suddenly heard a muffled thud.
With a loud "bang," it seemed to come from underground, and the ground itself seemed to tremble.
Instantly, the patrol teams not far away, carrying only torches, ran towards that secluded house to the west.
There was a moment of panic inside the house, until several people climbed up from the tunnel exit and blew the whistles they were wearing.
Immediately, the sharp whistle attracted only the attention of all the patrolling guards inside the brothel.
But at that moment, an even bigger explosion rang out in the tunnel, causing the ground to tremble slightly.
The Western Liang people in the brothel were drawn to the tremors of the ground and the sharp whistle. They finally realized something was wrong, pushed aside the women in front of them, and ran straight out following the sound of the whistle.
Seeing that many people were rushing out of the brothel and heading towards the room to the west.
Liu'er's face lit up with joy. She hid in the darkness and carefully made her way towards Lin Yan'an's location.
Only when the house on the west side fell silent again, and the previous chaotic footsteps ceased, did Liu'er and Lin Yan'an exchange a glance and head towards the house.
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