Chapter 3

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She froze for a moment: This was clearly what they had left over from the banquet. This child just secretly fished food from the swill of the stables in the middle of the night? Did the child see all what she did just now? That’s really troublesome. With a sigh, she put the knife back into the scabbard and squatted down.

“Which family’s child are you? Why didn’t you go to the front for dinner?” she looked at the child’s black eyes and asked, puzzled – today is a happy day for Huotu, and all the slaves can get a portion of meat and wine. Why is this child starving here alone?

She spoke softly and kindly, but quietly raised her fingers, trying to buckle on the child’s pulse. The child, however, was so vigilant that shrank back from her hand in an instant, just before her fingers could even come near to touch him. As soon as he moved, the strange metallic sound rang out again.

Zhu Yan took a look, and her face suddenly changed color: the child’s feet were actually locked with a heavy iron chain! The cold iron shackles locked the child’s ankles. He was laying there, staring at her with suspicion, crawling cautiously backward, the iron shackles and ground rubbing against one another, making the strange noise she heard before starting to echo again into the empty room. The other end of the chain was leading to a dark woodshed behind the stable.

On such an icy night, the child’s clothes were all rags, his exposed hands and feet were covered with frostbite, and his small ankles were covered with layers of blood scabs, healed and ulcerated. But what was more terrifying, she found that the reason why the child had been crawling the entire time was that his stomach was high and bulging, and seemed to have a sarcoma in his abdomen, which made it impossible for him to stand upright. Is it the child of a sinner? Otherwise, how could it end up so miserable?

While lost in thoughts, she unconsciously took a step forward. The beast-like child observed her with vigilance, crawled back quickly with the iron shackles clanging noisily, and kept her at a distance, while still holding the Nang cake from the swill in his hand.

“Hey, don’t run away!” When he was about to climb back to the door, Zhu Yan gently stretched out her hand, pinched at the back of his neck, and lifted him up in the air as if he were a puppy. The child shook his hands and feet desperately, struggling to free himself from her clench, but remained silent with a strange stubbornness on his face and refused to speak.

“Want to bite me?” She also had a bad temper, she couldn’t help but twist the child’s arm slightly, and snorted coldly: “It’s in the middle of the night, you didn’t go to sleep like everyone else, why did you have to come to this place? Tell me the truth or I won’t spare you.”

She seized the grumpy little beast and pulled the Jade Bone out of her hair with the other hand.

“Well… Ugh!” All of a sudden, a vague voice came from the darkness, anxious and frightened. At the same moment, the silent child suddenly blurted out; “Ah-Niang! Don’t say anything!”

Zhu Yan was taken aback – it turns out that the child is not a mute?

“Who’s there?” she frowned. Knowing that there was a second witness there, she got even more agitated. She stood up and pushed open the door of the woodshed. The room was small and dark, with an unpleasant foul smell, as if it contained rotten meat. The woodshed was full of things, and she couldn’t see clearly for a moment. She tripped over a wire, stumbled and almost fell while kicking onto something with a clatter. The Jade Bone connected to her mind, instantly emitted a faint light, illuminating the front for her. In that moment, she trembled for a second, she could not help but to cry out! Just now when she stumbled, what she kicked down was a wine jar made of coarse pottery, more than three feet tall, which usually was used by those heavy drinking herdsmen in the desert to store their own liquor; the wine jar rolled on the ground until it finally knocked on the wall in the corner of the house, then stopped. However, that wine jar had a bald woman’s head popping out on top! The hairless woman fell into the darkness, peeped out from the wine jar and glared at her. Her eyes were deep, and her face was covered on blood. That ferocious expression made Zhu Yan gasp and step back quickly.

Female ghost! There is a female ghost in the woodshed!

“Ah-Niang! Mother!” The child crawled over, shouting, lifting his arms as thin as hemp stalks, desperately trying to pick up the wine urn. However, the little man was way too small and weak, and he could not erect the heavy wine urn. Every time he tried to erect half of it, he fell back to the ground. The wine urn was laying horizontally on the ground and kept rolling. The woman’s head stretched out from the hole of the urn, staring at her, making a “ho-ho” sound with her mouth without pronouncing any intelligible word; her tongue has been severed from the root. At that moment, Zhu Yan finally understood and lost her voice: “Human… Human urn?”

Yes, that woman was not a ghost, but a living person whose limbs has all been cut off and then put into a wine jar to live!

How… How can such a thing still exist?! She was shivering all over and stood still for a moment. Yes, she was not afraid of any ghosts or monsters, but she simply didn’t know how to deal with living people like this. This stable is hell on earth.

Since the Beimian Emperor took the throne, at the request of the Great Commander and the Great Priest, Emperor Jialan has made a decree to abolish ten types of torture in the entire Yunxuan realm, including the human urn. Why is there still such a woman hidden in the stables of Houtu Clan?

She couldn’t recover for a moment, she was stunned.

The child tried hard to lift up the wine jar, wiped the cut on his mother’s forehead with his dirty sleeve, and hand the piece of Nang cake into her mouth. The woman in the urn was obviously very hungry. She swallowed it in one mouthful and almost didn’t bite her son’s hand.

Zhu Yan stared at her, she felt vaguely familiar, and suddenly lost her voice: “Are you… Are you Yu Ji?” (Fish Girl)

The woman in the urn was surprised and looked up at her – the face was bloody and fleshy, as if it had been cut by a sharp blade, and her hair was so dirty that she couldn’t even distinguish the color. But those pair of eyes are still azure, like gems. At that moment, Zhu Yan suddenly realized. Yes, that’s Yu Ji! She was the favorite woman of the King of Huotu Clan when he was alive! In the distant past, about ten years ago, she saw her. When she was a child, the old King of Huotu once brought this woman to the Heavenly Wind City and secretly visited the Red King’s Mansion. The iron-blooded man put aside the dignity as King of the desert, bowed his head, begging for the support of the Red King who commanded the Western Wilderness, and helped him suppress the dissents of the elders in the tribe, so that the Shark woman could be successfully accepted as a side consort.

“A Shark slave girl has given birth to a child! It is already good for her to be a concubine, but you still want to make her a side consort?”

The father couldn’t help but sneer and scorn him unceremoniously, “I say, old brother Geda, you are in your forties, don’t be fooled by lard…” However, just halfway through the speech, her father’s voice suddenly stopped. Because at that time, a gust of wind blew off the veil, revealing the face of the woman who had been sitting quietly with her head bowed down. At that moment, even if she was hiding to eavesdrop, she couldn’t help but say “ah!”.

The woman was so beautiful, like a fairy in a painting!

The Shark woman with long aqua-blue hair lowered her head, her petal-thin lips pursed lightly, her eyelashes seemed to be lowered in shame, and she didn’t say a word from beginning to end. However, behind the veil, her bright and blue eyes were as gentle as spring water, luminous and quiet, making all the words to feel useless.

The father stopped speaking immediately, and finally sighed: “I still feel sorry for you, how to mention an old slave?”

She couldn’t remember whether the stodgy father supported the request later. At that time, she was eight years old, she stared at the stunning Shark woman in a daze, thinking that God was so unfair to have bestowed the world’s most beautiful face on the Shark from the Blue Sea, and let the various races on the land pale in comparison.

While the adults were arguing fiercely in the tent, she could not help but sneaking over, climbing on each of them’s lap, staring up at the Shark woman for a long time from under the veil. The woman seems to be very shy and gentle, but looked at the little girl silently without speaking a word.

She was so lively and impatient at that age and easily lost her temper; she opened her mouth and speak up first. She held up the candy in the palm of her hand and whispered; “You’ve been sitting here alone for a long time… Are you hungry? Would you like some candy?”

The beautiful woman smiled sheepishly and bowed her head with a faint blush on her cheeks. “No, thank you.”

“Oh, how beautiful you are!” The little girl was full of envy. “I wish I were as good-looking as you!”

“You are also very good-looking, Xiao Yan.” The Shark girl smiled and answered softly, her voice was soft, like a spring breeze in a meadow. “When you will grow up, you will definitely be better-looking than me.”

“Really?” the child believed it and enchanted touched her face. “How do you know?”

“Because you are a good child.” The Shark woman raised her hand and touched the child’s soft hair, her fingers like white jade, vaguely translucent. “A kind-hearted child will be a great beauty when she grows up. This is a gift from the gods.”

“Is that so? That’s great then!” She got the promise she wanted and couldn’t help but laugh happily.

“Princess! Where have you been?” Suddenly a voice came from outside the tent.

“Oh, I have to get back! Otherwise, Grandma Sheng will scold me!” She stuck out her tongue and smiled at the Shark woman. “Hey, I’ll come to find you when I grow up and I become more beautiful!” Will I be more beautiful than you? We will live and see when you compare us!”

…..

In her childhood, the memory of this woman was only a fleeting moment. However, such an amazing beauty left a glance in her heart as a child at that time, which could not be forgotten for a long time.

She didn’t expect to see her again in a place like this after so many years!

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