Chapter 491: Ten Thousand Banners Slay Yama (Part 6) [Requesting Monthly Tickets]
All was quiet, in the dead of night.
There is a slave market in a corner of the capital of Shiwu.
A special area was designated for the business of buying and selling slaves. As the political center of the entire Shiwu, the capital's nobles had an enormous demand for slaves. Slaves were also categorized according to criteria such as age, gender, build, and appearance.
For example, young and beautiful women were bought to serve as female slaves, while young and strong men were bought to perform hard labor.
Slaves were thrown into gladiatorial combat, forced into the arena to fight beasts to the death, with nobles placing bets for entertainment. Even more extreme cases involved slaves using their bodies to serve trained ferocious beasts, while nobles sat on high platforms enjoying the heart-wrenching screams of the slaves below.
Slaves were the lowest of the low in the Ten Crows.
They are not considered human.
Killing them doesn't count as murder.
Killing a slave is as casual as breaking an unwanted bowl; once he dies, you can just buy a replacement.
Therefore, the turnover rate of slaves here is extremely fast.
Aside from the slaves, their caretakers, and those who purchased them, few outsiders ever came here. Firstly, the place was remote and desolate; secondly, the surrounding environment was filthy and stinking, with slave excrement and urine visible in every corner.
Thankfully, it's still the dead of winter.
If it's the hottest time of summer, with the weather scorching and the sun blazing, this excrement and urine will ferment and then disperse into the air...
The smell could be detected from several meters away, making people nauseous.
Why would a high-ranking and powerful person lower themselves to such a place?
Even their defenses were extremely lax.
Because the slaves dared not escape.
If they didn't run away, they could survive a few more days. But if they escaped and were caught, their fate would be worse than death, and they would suffer inhuman torture before their death. On one occasion, a slave owner ordered his men to peel a long gash from head to toe on a runaway slave, and then pour mercury into the wound on his head. The runaway slave was in unbearable pain and struggled desperately to escape, actually peeling off a piece of his own skin while he was still alive!
The slaves watching the execution were terrified and turned pale.
As soon as night fell, the slaves would obediently return to their tents, hug their thin, moldy, and tattered blankets, and try to curl up and fall asleep.
A small tent can sleep thirty or forty people.
Fortunately, there were many people to keep warm, otherwise they would freeze to death.
Soft rustling sounds.
Even the slightest sound was exceptionally clear in the quiet night. The slave near the edge of the tent tightened his tattered clothes, barely managed to turn over, pushed away the stinky foot that someone had placed on his face, closed his eyes, and continued to sleep.
After a while.
Outside the tent, in the far distance—
The extremely light footsteps brushed past my ears like the wind, louder than the rustling of the wild grass in the night breeze.
Unbeknownst to anyone, figures emerged from the ground.
"Pah, it stinks!"
The overwhelming stench was incredibly powerful.
"Did we dig up a latrine?"
The complaint was so light it was as if it were held in the mouth.
No one heard it except the owner of the voice.
One by one, people crawled out of the hidden pits. They deliberately dirtied their clothes and exposed skin. In addition, most people suffer from night blindness, which allowed them to blend perfectly into the night and sneak in silently.
A rough count revealed that there were more than 500 people.
Leading the group was naturally the highly skilled and daring Xu Quan, along with the indifferent Bai Su. Shen Tang hadn't originally planned to let Bai Su infiltrate the city, not because she didn't trust her abilities, but because she hadn't been practicing martial arts for long and the city was dangerous and unpredictable.
She was prepared to cultivate the white pigment properly.
Wouldn't it be a pity if we died here?
Bai Su naturally refused to agree.
She said in a deep voice, "I appreciate your kindness, my lord, but throughout history, no military general has achieved great deeds without taking risks. Which of them didn't risk their lives? I am but a lowly general; how could I possibly deserve your favor?"
Even if there was favoritism, it was because of her military achievements.
Bai Su now believes she is not qualified.
[I humbly request that my lord allow me to fight!]
Shen Tang opened his mouth.
After a long while, he sighed and gave in.
She said, "That's fine, but the city is dangerous, so be careful. I know you've been traveling the world since you were young, so I don't need to remind you repeatedly, but there's one thing you must remember—you are a rough gem, possessing inner brilliance, so never take your life lightly!"
Bai Su is a precious, unpolished gem, and she is much more important to Shen Tang than she thought!
Suppressing the pounding in her chest, Bai Su responded.
【Yes!】
This infiltration was led by Xu Quan, with Bai Su as his assistant.
They were just waiting for orders from outside the city to act.
Xu Quan rubbed his shoulders and chuckled, "Today I finally got to go on a killing spree. I've been digging tunnels for half a month, and my martial arts skills for guarding the house are almost rusty." He didn't want to answer that he was a proficient tunnel digger when his cousin wrote home to ask if he had made any progress.
If that's the case, his cousin might come and kill him.
With a cold face, Bai Su silently snapped the neck of a slave guard who was getting up at night and hid the limp corpse.
"We must not let our guard down!"
Xu Quan was not intimidated by her.
After spending more time together, he discovered that Bai Su was a typical case of being cold on the outside but warm on the inside; she might have a tough exterior, but her actions were actually very considerate. Despite being younger than him, her demeanor was unusually mature. Xu Quan smiled, his eyes crinkling: "With military achievements to his name, it's understandable that he's excited."
Bai Su pursed her lips.
actually--
She was quite excited too.
Previously, she had only targeted those tribes, accumulating numerous military merits, but she always felt something was missing. This time, coming to the capital of the Ten Crows Kingdom, right at the heart of the Ten Crows regime, she was able to lead her men to infiltrate silently, swaggering around in the enemy's stronghold.
The experience is completely different.
Xu Quan wanted to make a few jokes to ease the tension, but suddenly sensed something, his expression turned serious, and he raised his hand.
He said in a deep voice, "It's coming!"
Bai Su and the others were on edge.
Their location was carefully calculated; it was the least affected by the earthquake, and the terrain was wide open and unguarded. Once chaos ensued, they could set fires and ambush their way through, using their advantage of surprise and speed to maximize their victory!
Almost the instant Xu Quan's voice fell, several different streams of black and white aura rapidly filled every corner of the cave beneath their feet, one of them being particularly powerful. In the darkness, it seemed as if a ferocious beast had opened its bloodthirsty eyes.
Outside the royal city.
Jiang Sheng stared coldly at the city walls on the horizon, his thin lips parted slightly, and he said, "Scattered like stars!"
If one could see the distribution of the spiritual energy underground, one would find that it crisscrosses in an orderly fashion, with several streams of energy tacitly transforming into a chessboard. On the chessboard, strange phenomena frequently occur, with wind, fire, thunder, and lightning sweeping wildly, finally coalescing into a coiled giant dragon.
"cut!"
The word fell.
The dragon's body was broken in two.
A deafening roar, like the final roar of a dragon, erupted from the ground, causing the cave to collapse and the ground to sink. Sudden bursts of flame erupted from every crack, as a gust of wind blew in from who-knows-where.
The fire was fueled by the wind!
At the same time, one of the pillars of fire shot into the sky, bursting forth with the most dazzling five-colored light at its highest point.
Fist-sized sparks, centered on the pillar of fire, multiply, then multiply again, until they cover the entire sky.
Countless flames descended from the sky.
Those fortunate enough to witness this scene will never forget it.
(■_■)
Writing the same chapter of a novel twice is also incredibly frustrating; the manuscript was lost during the simultaneous writing process...
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
