Chapter 16
While the soldiers were talking to the city guard, Sui Yu squatted down, hugged Sui Liang, and said, "Follow your cousin when you enter the city. Be obedient, and he will take you to find me in two days."
As he spoke, his hands had already reached into his clothes. Sui Yu stuffed a pair of silver bracelets and a triangular piece of silver that he had hidden on his body into Sui Liang's pockets, and whispered, "Hold them tightly so no one finds them. Give them to your cousin when no one is around. Remember?"
Sui Liang clenched his hands tightly and nodded seriously.
"So good." Sui Yu praised.
"Let's go," the officer ordered, explaining as they marched: "Recruits go in front and follow the leader. The prisoners will be divided into two lines, men on the right and women on the left."
Sui Wen'an came over and took Sui Liang's hand.
"Brother..." Sui Hui was extremely frightened. She was trembling all over as she looked at the city gate.
There were too many people around and it was not the right place to talk, so Sui Wen'an winked at her, picked up Sui Liang and followed the team.
When relatives parted ways, the situation would change drastically when they met again. For a moment, there was a loud cry at the city gate.
"I heard these are prisoners..."
"No wonder you cried so miserably, but you deserved it..."
Passersby pointed and talked, and some men even looked at the women nakedly, laughing in ambiguous ways from time to time.
An old woman with makeup on her face came out of the city, exchanged a few pleasantries with the city guard, and shouted at the top of her voice, "Follow me, everyone!"
Sui Yu pulled Sui Hui and Sui Ling to follow, and they walked around the city for a long time before finally entering a remote and quiet house.
"Tsk tsk, dirty and skinny." The old woman covered her nose with her hand and called another person over with disgust, saying, "Find some clothes for them to change into. Split up the twenty-seven people and put them in two rooms."
"Is it still the same arrangement as in previous years?" asked the housekeeper.
"Well, let's keep it for a few days first."
After hearing this, Sui Yu felt relieved.
Each person was given a set of clean clothes. Sui Yu and 27 others were led by the female manager to the river to fetch water to wash their hair. After washing their hair, they fetched water back to take a bath.
By this time, it was already dark, and the camp prostitutes who had worked all day came back one after another. The washed clothes were hung out to dry in the yard, and the beaten furs were spread out on the stones.
The sound of iron clashing was heard in the backyard. The camp prostitutes stopped what they were doing and went back to the house to get their earthenware bowls to eat.
The newcomer waited until they were all gone before following them.
"These are your bowls and chopsticks. Take your own. After dinner, take them back to your rooms. If any are broken, you'll have to buy new ones." The housekeeper brought out a pile of coarse pottery bowls that had been used countless times and continued, "After dinner, go back to your rooms. If you hear any noise at night, don't come out. Of course, if you want to receive guests earlier, that's fine."
After she said this, Sui Yu got some food and called Sui Hui and her sister to go back to the house. When the others saw this, they followed.
Both rooms had two rows of kangs made of rammed earth, covered with bamboo mats with rotten edges and holes. An indescribable smell lingered in the room.
Of the more than 20 women in the Sui family, only eight were still alive when they arrived in Dunhuang. These eight people were placed in one room, and the other five women were also from Yu County.
The kang bed near the inside had been robbed, so the three sisters, Sui Yu and her sister, could only sleep near the door. Before she finished her bowl of rice, Sui Yu heard a man's voice and quickly jumped down to close the door.
The door was bolted and the room fell into darkness. In this pitch-black loess house, no one spoke, only the sound of suppressed breathing.
A sharp scream was heard, and soon after, unbearable curses mixed with obscene sounds rang out from behind a wall.
There were more footsteps outside the door, and a group of men walked into the room on the other side, talking and laughing. In less than half a cup of tea, groans and screams came through the thick earthen walls, and the dust on the walls fell down.
The person lying on the kang shed tears silently and covered his ears tightly, but the sounds still pierced his ears like needles.
Footsteps outside the door came and went, and there was even a man stopping at the door and lying on it. Sui Yu lay on the kang, her skin tense. She was shivering and sweating. She seemed to be able to smell the breath coming in through the crack of the door, fishy and cold.
The obscene sounds lasted until half the night before they stopped, and Sui Yu and the others did not sleep all night.
The next morning, the housekeeper knocked on the door. As if nothing had happened, she said, "It's a fine day today. Clean each room and take the kang mats down to the river to wash them."
The camp prostitutes, who had become accustomed to this kind of life, went out to work after eating. In addition to washing clothes and processing furs for the soldiers in the barracks, they also had to farm.
"Sir, could you tell me which direction Captain Li An's residence is located?" Sui Wen'an slipped a dime to the guard and said, "My father and Captain Li are old friends, and he told me to come and visit them."
"Captain Li? I remember the captain guarding Yumen Pass was named Li. But Yumen Pass is over a hundred miles away from Dunhuang."
"Thank you for letting me know."
When Sui Wen'an got the news, he went to find the escort officer again. He happened to be selecting a hundred people to repair beacon towers in the two cities of Yumen Pass and Yangguan. He hurriedly pulled Sui Liang and took the initiative to go there.
Leaving Dunhuang and heading towards Yumen Pass, it took three days to walk hundreds of miles. Along the way, Sui Wen'an was extremely anxious and a circle of blisters appeared on his mouth.
It was already evening when he arrived at Yumen Pass. After entering the city gate, he grabbed the city guard and asked, "Sir, which direction is Li An's residence? Please show me the way. My father and Li An are good friends..."
"What are you doing?" The escort officer, fearing trouble, pulled Sui Wen'an to the ground and scolded him, "You're rebelling! Behave yourself."
On the tower, Captain Li said to the people around him, "Go down and find out."
The guard walked down the tower and stopped the man who was frantically stuffing silver bracelets into the escort officer's hand. He cursed him in his heart and took the man aside to ask for clarification. He then went up the tower again and said, "Sui Jiushan, the son of the Yuxian County Magistrate, is the captain here? Should we bring him up?"
"Bring it up." Captain Li laughed.
Sui Wen'an pulled Sui Liang up to the tower, bending over. He was filled with trepidation. Seeing someone kneel down, he said, "The guilty Sui Wen'an greets Captain Li."
"Did your father get into trouble?" Captain Li turned around and said, "Look up. Tsk, you look just like your father when he was young."
Sui Wen'an sensed Li Ang's attitude with a soft smack. He knelt and said, "My father embezzled flood control funds and was sentenced to beheaded last autumn. He implicated our three clans and exiled us to the northwest. It doesn't matter to the slave, but unfortunately, his three sisters were lucky enough to make it all the way to Dunhuang and end up in a brothel. I beg the captain, considering our schoolmates, to spare my sisters' lives."
"Friendship between classmates? Sui Jiushan looked at me because I came from a poor family and scolded me as a wild boar and a rough man. How can there be friendship between classmates?" Li An sneered.
Sui Wen'an knelt down and kowtowed again, his forehead hitting the wall with a loud thud. He kowtowed three times in a row and, kneeling, said, "My father is reckless and blind. I hope Captain Li will not take issue with a scoundrel like him who looks down on others."
Li An laughed heartily. This was truly heartening. He stared at the people crawling on the ground like dogs. With his current power, there were many people wagging their tails and begging for mercy. Thinking of this, he suddenly felt that it was meaningless.
"Send someone to take him to Dunhuang and visit the brothel." He said coldly.
"Thank you, Captain. I will never forget your kindness." Sui Wen'an kowtowed again. He was too nervous and lost control of his strength, hitting his forehead hard on the wall tiles, causing bleeding.
"You are such an honest kid." Li An signaled his subordinates to come and help him.
Sui Wen'an remained kneeling and begged, "My three sisters have been in the brothel for over three days. I'm worried..."
"Send someone on horseback to go there overnight." Captain Li was very easy to talk to at this moment.
"How to arrange it?" the subordinate asked.
"I don't want to trouble the captain to worry about it. The three of them are lucky enough to marry into ordinary families." Sui Wen'an said hurriedly.
Captain Li nodded lightly and said, "Go down and make arrangements."
"The guilty slave also takes his leave." Sui Wen'an picked up Sui Liang and followed him down the city wall.
Li An stood on the city wall, watching the two horses gallop out of the city gate one after another. He said to his attendants, "If he asks to see me again in the future, send someone to stop him. There is no need to bring him before me."
"promise."
…
As night fell, in a tavern in Dunhuang City, a table of men drinking were drunkenly talking about good places to spend the night. The more they talked, the more excited they became. After paying the bill, the five men walked arm in arm towards the west of the city.
"I heard there are several young ladies from wealthy families among the newcomers this time. Let's go and try some of them out."
"Where's the freshness?"
"Hahaha--"
In the brothel, the matron was afraid that these drunks would upset the skinny maids, so she said, "The general will come again tomorrow night. I'll have the maids tidy up and serve you well tonight."
"What do you mean tonight or tomorrow night... just tonight..."
The drunk was so loud that Sui Yu and the others could hear it clearly while lying in the room. Seeing that the steward couldn't stop him and heard heavy footsteps coming, she quickly ran down to block the door and said hurriedly, "Come down and block the door quickly. Don't let anyone in."
Sui Hui and Sui Lingguang fell to the ground, their faces pale with fear, and they leaned against the door, shaking their bodies.
"Open the door." The door was knocked. The drunk man outside leaned against the door and said infatuatedly: "Miss...open the door quickly, brother will let...make you happy..."
As he said that, he actually kicked her. Sui Yu angrily called for others to block the door, "You won't get any good if you let someone in."
A young daughter-in-law jumped off the kang and pushed the door open. She felt Sui Ling trembling with fear. Thinking of the suffering she had endured along the way and the dark and miserable days that were to come, she suddenly became frightened and pulled Sui Ling away, reaching for the bolt.
"What are you doing?" Sui Yu kicked her.
"Hahaha, the people outside are greedy for your bodies..." The woman frantically pulled on the door, laughing crazily, "We've suffered so much for you, it's time for you to explore the way for us."
Sui Ling was so scared that she rolled and crawled to her feet. When she was kicked down, she simply hugged the woman's legs and bit them. She didn't let go even when her head was buzzing.
There was crying, cursing, shouting and yelling in the room. The manager outside saw that something was wrong and hurriedly asked people to drag away a few drunks and had the door broken down. The eight people in the room were wrestling on the ground, with their hair pulled out and thrown all over the floor.
After making a fuss for half the night, when they lay down on the kang again, the woman whose leg was bitten and bleeding scolded Sui Yu as a fool, "We are all implicated by them, and you turn around to help the culprit beat us who are implicated?" If Sui Yu had not intervened, she would have pushed the two sick chickens out long ago.
"You're a bad guy too. Don't make yourself sound so innocent." Sui Yu was so angry that her chest hurt. She said, "If you had opened the door tonight..."
"If not tonight then tomorrow night."
Sui Yu was speechless. She covered her eyes and cried. She and her sister Sui Hui had hope. If they could hold on for one more night, they would have a better chance of escaping. But for the others...
"The law and Sui Jiushan are wrong, not Sui Hui and Sui Ling. It's the law that has condemned us." She cried, "The guilty are already dead, and we, the innocent, are being used by the law to appease public anger."
She told it to others, and also to herself, comforting herself that even if she had selfish motives, she had done nothing wrong.
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