AEOGA CH38

The emperor’s ruthless cruelty was fully displayed, yet Lu Xuechao could hear a faint, almost imperceptible tremor of fear and lingering terror suppressed beneath it.

Lu Xuechao closed his eyes, his heart feeling heavy.

Xie Chongjin was naturally not afraid of these two low-level minions.

They had previously formulated a thorough plan: wait for their accomplices to arrive at night, at which point the secret guards would capture everyone in one fell swoop for strict interrogation.

Xie Chongjin directly killing these two men was unexpected, yet entirely understandable.

——Simply hearing that those two were going to harm him, Xie Chongjin had killed them purely out of instinct.

Lu Xuechao was the person Xie Chongjin had wanted to protect for a lifetime since childhood. But across countless past lives, Lu Xuechao had been harmed by players times without number, and Xie Chongjin had never once succeeded in protecting him.

Desperately resisting, pleading, hating, and despairing in his mind, his body could only remain unmovingly indifferent against his control, forced to witness Lu Xuechao die time and time again.

To protect Lu Xuechao, to kill anyone who wanted to harm Lu Xuechao—this was likely the outcry that had resounded in Xie Chongjin’s heart countless times, the conviction engraved countless times, the hatred boiling countless times, practiced in his mind who knew how many times.

Only then, when he was finally able to control himself, would his sword stroke be so swift and practiced.

He simply wanted to protect him, to never let him suffer even the slightest bit of harm again.

He should have realized it long ago.

Lu Xuechao thought.

Huaiyun was a very kind and responsible person. When he was young and saw Yun Luo being trafficked, he had insisted on rescuing him and conducting a thorough investigation, destroying an entire dark human trafficking network and saving countless people. Seeing injustice on the road, he would draw his sword to help, showing noble righteousness.

There was no reason that upon seeing a black-market inn now, his first reaction would be to sit idly by, doing so merely to tell him not to draw near, without giving a single thought to whether there might be other victims, requiring him to offer a reminder.

Xie Chongjin was unwilling to let Lu Xuechao step into danger. His desire to protect him was too intense—so intense that, at the time, he couldn’t think of anyone else at all.

Behind such a fierce desire to protect lay the scars of remorse built from failing to save him time after time.

What Xie Chongjin feared most was Lu Xuechao coming to harm, because he had always been too late to protect him.

If he could make it in time, his movements would certainly be very, very fast.

Just like now.

Seeing Lu Xuechao remain silent for a long time, Xie Chongjin assumed he had frightened him, so his tone softened into a calm gentleness: “Qingshu, it’s fine now.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Xie Chongjin comforted Lu Xuechao, then repeated almost as a murmur to himself, “I will absolutely, definitely never let anything happen to you again.”

Lu Xuechao leaned against his chest, wrapping both arms around his waist, and in turn gently soothed him: “I know. You protect me very well; nothing happened to me at all.”

So, don’t be afraid.

Soothed by Lu Xuechao’s gentle voice, Xie Chongjin finally gradually calmed down.

The scene was actually a bit strange. It appeared as though Lu Xuechao was the one being comforted, but in reality, the one being comforted was Xie Chongjin.

Holding and leaning on each other was their greatest solace.

“Master, the people outside have been captured—” Shadow raised a torch and lifted the curtain, entering only to find two corpses lying on the floor, while his master was holding the master consort in his arms, “…completely. Awaiting your disposal.”

He wondered if the dogs’ table could squeeze in one more secret guard.

Lu Xuechao said, “Let’s go outside and take a look.”

–

In the main hall, candles were lit, illuminating several bound people kneeling on the floor, all with miserable expressions on their faces.

What was going on with Dazhuang and Houzi? Didn’t they say there were only two pieces of cargo in this batch? How was it that as soon as they arrived, they were all captured by these several dozen black-clothed men who appeared out of nowhere?

It couldn’t be that these black-clothed men blended so seamlessly into the night that Dazhuang and Houzi were blind and failed to see them, right?

One couldn’t blame Dazhuang and Houzi for being careless; in their line of work, they were also afraid of provoking people they shouldn’t mess with. They didn’t dare touch government officials, and those traveling with a large group of guards were directly passed over.

However, Lu Xuechao and Xie Chongjin were simply too low-key. They looked like wealthy young gentlemen traveling alone without even a single guard. If they didn’t slaughter them, who else would they target?

How could normal people anticipate the existence of secret guards? Mainly, normal households wouldn’t raise secret guards anyway; hiring a few guards was already considered a wealthy household.

Secret guards were an exclusive privilege of the imperial family, entirely out of reach for ordinary people.

The kneeling men wailed in distress. These black-clothed men were extraordinarily well-trained; whether they begged for mercy or tried to probe for information, not a single one opened their mouth to pay them any mind, leaving them with no idea of the other party’s background.

Just as they were thoroughly perplexed, they saw two people emerge from behind the curtain.

Under the dim candlelight, the two figures boasted breathtaking beauty, as if even the interior of the room had been brightened.

The men were struck dumb, never imagining such beautiful people existed in the world—and appearing as a pair at that.

Especially the one in white: peerlessly exquisite, delicate as a slender willow in the wind. If judged by the standards of a shouma, he was a supreme, matchless beauty—even the most famous shouma in Yunzhou could not compare to his extraordinary grace.

Before they could recover from this soul-captivating appearance, they saw the black-clothed men who had ignored all their pleas instantly drop to one knee, calling out in unison: “Master, Master Consort.”

The men’s faces twitched, terrified by this display.

This time, they had truly kicked a steel plate.

Just what kind of family would use such titles? They couldn’t even begin to imagine.

They ought to be thankful that the secret guards’ uniform titles were “Master” and “Master Consort.” If they had called out “Your Majesty” and “Your Highness the Empress,” these few would have been frightened to death on the spot.

Xie Chongjin said coldly: “Interrogate them.”

The secret guards had their own methods for torture. Though there were no specialized instruments of torture at hand, simply severing tendons and breaking bones was enough to make anyone break down.

These men weren’t tough bones either. The secret guards had only twisted one man’s wrist when the opposite side wept bitterly, confessing everything they knew.

…

Jiangnan had many wealthy merchants, and the practice of raising “shouma” was rampant.

Shouma did not refer to thin horses. Rather, human traffickers bought or kidnapped young boys, raising them according to their looks and aptitude—teaching them either zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting; financial management and bookkeeping; or culinary arts and embroidery. When they turned sixteen, they were put up for auction to the highest bidder. Those with good aptitude became concubines to wealthy merchants; those lacking in talent who were not bought by merchants were sold to brothels as escorts. Because Changli considered slender and delicate figures as the epitome of beauty, these males were often intentionally raised to be thin and frail, hence the name “shouma.”

This bad habit had originally existed in Yelang Kingdom, where they bought and sold young girls. The people of Changli had different preferences, but human nature was universal—where there was demand, there would be supply. Because they were only auctioned upon reaching sixteen, it technically didn’t violate the law.

The shouma engaged in seeking pleasure, indulging in pleasure, or bearing children (chenghuan), but their fates were equally tragic: treated as playthings, learning various skills only to raise their market value, much like fledgling prostitutes in brothels, with all the money they earned ultimately flowing into the traffickers’ pockets.

Raising shouma was a lucrative industry in Jiangnan, particularly rampant in Quling, Yunzhou, and Quancheng, with Yunzhou’s shouma being the most famous. Qiuling Town fell under the jurisdiction of Quling, and this industry existed there as well.

Originally, shouma were a minority. Unless a family was too impoverished to feed their children, most were unwilling to sell them. Consequently, many human traffickers took risks to kidnap, abduct, and deceive children. This was a capital crime, but as long as it was profitable, someone would do it. Once successful, whether the child ended up as a servant or a prostitute, it was the life of a lower-class person; who would bother investigating the origin of a lower-class person?

In recent years, Jiangnan had suffered from natural disasters. While it affected the wealthy merchants—at most meaning they earned less money than before, with the cold-hearted even taking the opportunity to jack up grain prices—the common people were so poor they couldn’t keep the pot boiling. Cases of selling sons or voluntarily selling oneself increased, and bandits who robbed and killed also proliferated.

The burly man who had died was named Dazhuang, and the tall, thin worker was named Houzi. They were brothers whose family home and fields had been swept away by floods. Starving to the point of killing a person and eating human flesh, they had since engaged in robbery and murder around Qiuling Town.

Those passing through here were either fleeing refugees or travelling merchants. The former were emaciated and penniless, killed to be made into meat buns—which the brothers even complained had tough meat. The latter often carried batches of goods; killing them allowed the brothers to loot both wealth and cargo, making it a grand haul. In the desolate mountains and wild hills, killing people and burying corpses was exceedingly convenient.

The two brothers brought their looted goods to town to fence them. Hearing that being bandits wasn’t considered ambitious and that selling people as shouma was where the real money lay, they became tempted.

With current natural and man-made disasters, public order was in chaos, and local governments were virtually nonexistent. Many villains chose to become human traffickers, specializing in kidnapping young and handsome males to sell as ready-made shouma. Naturally, the quality couldn’t compare to those raised from childhood, leading to many low-quality imitations flooding the shouma industry, but there were always unpicky buyers. Selling just one yielded exorbitant profits.

The brothers were moved to action, but lacking connections, patience, and the ability to raise a child from youth, they picked clear-featured, handsome individuals from passing guests and contacted human traffickers in town to sell them off. The ones making the most money were still the trafficking middlemen; the brothers were merely minions providing the supply.

Although Houzi and Dazhuang hadn’t seen Xie Chongjin and Lu Xuechao’s faces during the day, their extraordinary demeanor suggested they could fetch a good price, so they immediately contacted the town’s traffickers.

Realizing they had provoked prominent figures they shouldn’t have touched, several traffickers wept tears and snot, begging for mercy: “Young masters, spare our lives! We were forced by desperation, driven by necessity… We have never taken a human life…”

“Those two killed people, robbed wealth, and made meat buns—you knew about that, didn’t you?” Xie Chongjin asked coldly. “Knowing the truth without reporting it, helping the wicked—was that also driven by necessity?”

The trafficker stammered: “In these times, commoners exchanging children to eat isn’t a rare thing… What official would we report a case of cannibalism to…”

Xie Chongjin took a deep breath and closed his eyes in pain, his fingers gripping the armrests of his chair so tightly that blue veins bulged on the back of his hands.

The prosperity of Yujing blinded people’s eyes; behind crimson gates, meat and wine went bad, while on the roads lay those frozen to death. He had no idea… it had reached such a tragic state.

If one person ate human flesh, that individual was guilty of a heinous crime.

If ten thousand people ate human flesh, it meant the ruler of the nation was guilty of a heinous crime.

Hearing this, Lu Xuechao’s expression altered as well. Noticing Xie Chongjin’s emotional volatility and fearing he would blame himself again, Lu Xuechao immediately said: “Set off for Qiuling Town and bring these people along. We will report this to the local authorities tomorrow.”

He wanted to see just how the local officials of Quling governed their territory.

The two had purged the officials in Yujing, but Changli’s territory was vast. Many places were far beyond the imperial reach, reaching areas they could not manage.

It was high time they stepped in to handle it.

Hearing this, the traffickers instead breathed a sigh of relief.

As long as they weren’t disposed of in secret, it was fine. Quling’s local officials were recently busy entertaining the imperial envoys sent by the court—where would they find the time to care about such trivial matters of theirs?