Chapter 22

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Before he could say another word, the people next to him shouted, “Don’t talk nonsense in front of the Princess! You mean you picked up this human urn? If you lie, the Gods will cut off your tongue!”

“How can you can pick up a shark casually? Is gold flowing in the Red Water? Do you think everyone is stupid?”

The group of merchants became more and more angry as they talked, rolling up their sleeves and almost beating the consignor again.

However, Zhu Yan stopped everyone and said, “He’s not lying. It is true that this human urn was not made by him. Let him go.”

“…” The merchants looked at each other, but did not dare to disobey the Princess’s orders, so they had to let go, angrily.

The cargo owner breathed a sigh of relief and kowtowed, knocking his head to the ground: “The Princess is wise! Little… This little servant is willing to dedicate both mother and son to the Princess!”

Zhu Yan glanced at the merchant and sneered: It should be true he picked them up from the side of the road, but what does it mean to have them take a trip along the way? This guy, he clearly saw that this pair of mother and son were sharks, and wanted to take possession of them privately… Take them to Yecheng to sell them as slaves, right? After all, even if the shark is dead, his body is of high value, not to mention such a living little shark.

“Get out of my way!” In a bad temper, Zhu Yan kicked the merchant aside, then bent down and helped the child pick up the rolling piece of meat on the ground; The feeling of the torso without limbs in her arms felt very strange, soft and heavy, drooping everywhere, like a deep-sea fish without bones, or a dead piece of meat on the chopping block. No wonder that people were saying her fate was hateful, when such a peerless beauty ended up like this!

Zhu Yan’s eyes reddened, and holding up the chill in her heart, she hugged Yu Ji up and carefully placed her on a pile of woolen blankets next to her. The child followed, helping to support the mother’s spine with his tiny hand, and slowly put her feeble body down. Then quickly pulled a blanket over her naked body.

“Hey, are you okay?” Zhu Yan pulled away the messy long hair on her face, and whispered to the shapeless person. The woman reluctantly opened her eyes, but when she saw her, her eyes suddenly brightened up!

“Ah… Ah…” Yu Ji laboriously opened her mouth, looked at her, then turned to look at the child on the side. Her glance was anxious, her blue eyes were filled with tears, but her cut tongue could not mutter a single word.

At the moment of seeing the person’s true face, everyone gasped again.

“Oh my God! The person in the urn is really a shark? And it is a woman! I just thought that guy was lying!”

“How could there be shark people in the Western Wilderness? Will there be fish in the desert? He also said that he picked them beside Red Water, but there is nothing in the Red Water except the ghosts, how could there be shark people? He must have lied!”

“Some noble family must have thrown them away, I guess?”

“Such delicate things as shark people cannot survive without clean and adequate water, even if you spend tens of thousands of gold baht to buy one, you will have to spend a lot more money to keep them clean and hydrated when they are transported back to the Western Wilderness, otherwise they will die of dehydration in less than three months. Unless they are royals or aristocrats, who else has the money to do this among ordinary herdsmen?”

“That makes sense! You’re right.”

“Really, who did it? Are they crazy? Unexpectedly, they chopped off the limbs of a good shark and put her in a wine urn, and her face was scratched! If you take her to Yecheng, how much can you sell her for?”

“Well, it looks like she’s dying…”

In the tide of whispers, the child was pushing his mother desperately with his hands so that her loose eyes would not be closing again… but Yu Ji kept looking at Zhu Yan, faintly calling for something with her tongueless mouth, the aqua-blue hair was draping down, tangling like algae against her pale face like a sheet of paper.

“Ah-Niang… Mother!” The child shook his mother in a soft, trembling voice.

The man next to him looked at the child and uttered another low remark.

“Oh, this child is also a shark!”

“Too young… Only sixty years old, right? There is no gender differentiation yet.”

Having said this, many people suddenly realized: “No wonder that guy was so desperate! A small shark who has not changed yet can be estimated to sell for two thousand gold baht if he takes it to Yecheng. It’s more profitable than the entire sales of his trip!”

However, another sharp-eyed merchant looked down to the boy, and shook his head: “No that’s not right, this child looks too dirty and too thin. There is something wrong with his stomach. Why is it bulging like that? Is it a tumor? If he is sick, you can’t sell it at a high price!”

“Anyway, you can still sell it for some good money. If it doesn’t work, you can still cut out a pair of eyes and make them into blue beads. It’s worth thousands of baht anyway. If it were me, I couldn’t help picking up such bargain!”

There was a great deal of talk, and countless eyes crossed over the shark mother and son on the ground, scanning them from side to side, and evaluating them separately, as if they were looking at a cargo of goods. After all, these Western Wilderness merchants have never had the opportunity to fish and sell sharks like the merchants on the Southern coast, and the high value of the sharks in Yecheng’s east and west markets has made most of them unattainable. Now that they finally came across one, of course they have to watch and study them long enough.

However, despite all the arguments around him, the child looked only at his mother.

Zhu Yan has been supporting Yu Ji’s soft back with her hands; this woman has been put in the wine urn for too long, her spine has been broken, and she has lost all her strength. While holding her Zhu Yan started to feel the unique cold skin of the sharks, she reluctantly tried to enhance the vitality of the dying person.

Finally, Yu Ji’s complexion improved a little, and she glanced at her vaguely, her pale lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but her cut tongue couldn’t say a word.

“Don’t worry, the woman who did you harm has been arrested and the emperor has sentenced her to death. Even her son died in front of her, the wicked had their punishment. Cheer up,” said Zhu Yan, lifting her shoulders and whispering into her ear. “I’ll take you to Yecheng and find you a good doctor, okay?”

The news seemed to shock the dying person, Yu Ji’s eyes widened suddenly, staring at Zhu Yan, she opened her mouth, with the corners of her mouth slightly bent, and a low laugh came from the empty hollow.

“Ah-Niang!” the child cried calling her, heartbreakingly, “Ah-Niang!”

Yu Ji slowly turned her eyes and looked at the child as if she wanted to touch his head, but she had no hands. “Ah-ah!” she cried, pushing her head desperately against the child’s face with her only moving cheek. Zhu Yan felt pain in her heart and almost burst into tears, she hurriedly hugged her and leaned her in the direction of the child. Yu Ji tried her best to stick her face to the child’s small face and gently kissed the child’s forehead.

“Ah-Niang… Mother!” At that moment, the stubborn and silent child finally couldn’t help crying and hugged his mother’s neck. “Don’t leave me!”

There were tears in Yu Ji’s eyes, she gasped quickly, looked at the child, then turned to look at Zhu Yan, a supplication flashed in her gloomy eyes, as she opened her mouth with difficulty.

“Don’t worry, it’s on me now!” At that moment, when she understood the meaning of the dying woman, Zhu Yan only felt a surge of blood in her heart and said with emotion, “As long as I am here, no one dares to bully your child!”

Yu Ji looked at her gratefully and nodded her head slowly. One after another, glistening tears rolled down from the corners of her eyes, flowed through her dirty and haggard face and condensed into pearls on the blanket. The merchants around them marveled and swarmed around them unconsciously.

“Shark beads! These are the pearls the Shark has melted into tears!”

“Oh, my God, I’ve never seen it before!”

“How much is each one worth? A golden baht?”

In the midst of all this talk, the tears finally stopped. Finally, Yu Ji looked deeply at the child, and her head sank suddenly into Zhu Yan’s arms. The heart slowly quieted down in the chest then stopped and never moved again.

Zhu Yan was stunned for a moment, then let go of her hand suddenly: “She’s… Is she dead?”

“Go away!” The child gave her a sudden shudder, pushed her hand away, snatched his mother’s body from her, and hugged her. “Don’t touch her!”

“What do you want to do? Your mother is already dead!” said Zhu Yan in astonishment.

The child ignored her, trembling all over, with a pale face, silently started wrapping his mother’s body in a blanket carefully layer by layer, then tied a knot, half-dragging and half-pulling. He just wanted to leave there step by step with his mother’s body.

“Hey…” cried the owner of the blanket, but then gave a frightened look at Zhu Yan’s face, and dare to say no more.

Each of these blankets is worth a golden baht. Besides, even if this shark woman is dead, those eyes aren’t. The shark’s eyes are a treasure. They can be dug out with a silver knife and kept in clean water. If you go to Yehcheng and find a good craftsman, you can make a pair of turquoise beads at a good price. If he can sell them, he may make more money than he did on this entire trip.

However, seeing the Princess of the Red King’s Mansion on the side, no one dared to act rashly.

“What? Are you leaving?” Zhu Yan was a little surprised and a little angry. She chased up and asked, “Did you not hear that your mother asked me to take care of you before she died? Where do you want to go alone now?”

The child did not look back and walked forward without listening.

“Are you deaf?” Zhu Yan frowned and said loudly, “Little bastard! Come back here!”

The child still walked on without stopping, holding back his tears and saying nothing. Young and frail, he dragged the corpse very slowly, his small arms and legs trembling, he was almost half walking and half crawling on the official road.

The merchants around them looked at each other, their eyes full of sorrow.

Such a small and weak shark will die halfway down the road before walking a few miles away. Even if the child survived and made it to Yecheng alive, as an ownerless shark without a contract or protection from a master, he would be recaptured as a runaway slave and taken to the market to be sold; It’s better for him to be taken away from here.

After all, following the Princess of the Red Clan, is the best place in the country where he can end up to live.

Zhu Yan shouted several times from behind, but the child kept dragging his mother’s body, walking forward step by step. She was angry in her heart, swung the whip in her hand, and said harshly, “No one is allowed to stop him! Let the boy go!”

The blocking crowd suddenly dispersed to make way for the child. At that moment, the child finally stopped and looked back at her: The child’s eyes were bottomless, like the blue sea, but not clear, full of cold hostility and deep hatred.

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