Chapter 4 Where is the Destiny?

I don't know how long it has been, or when it will be.

In the boundless darkness, time passes in a hurry, which tends to make people's feelings, but also become numb and redundant.

"Nine Winds ......"

It was the same familiar, but unfamiliar voice that floated in Wang Baoshan's ears, and like the previous confusion, with the confusion of coming to a distant place, he opened his eyes and woke up.

When he woke up, he felt that there was no pain in his whole body, and the pain was so painful that he wanted to scream, and the pain made him almost suffocate.

It was a kind of pain that trembled all over the body, as if it had been cramped, torn apart, and peeled off the skin, and it was a heart-wrenching feeling.

As soon as he wanted to get up, he didn't want another sharp pain that almost made him faint again. He had to endure the pain and no longer move as much as he could. It was only after the unbearable pain had subsided a little that he turned his head and began to look at the place where he was.

This is a small earthen cave, and there is only a faint light in it, and it is swaying and shining a poke of things.

But I saw that a soybean oil lamp inserted in the mouth of the earthen kiln, under the ruthless pulling of the wild wind, the wick was struggling weakly. The ground was haphazardly covered with rotten grass and leaves, spoiled and twisted, and had long since tormented them beyond recognition, leaving only their shells on the remains. The pungent rancid smell and indescribable strange smell around it formed a long-term accumulation in the earthen kiln, causing pests and rats to run wild, as if no one was there.

"Alas......"

Suddenly, a slight groan floated over in the rotten grass.

Leisurely, the sound is like silky rain.

If it weren't for this moan, Wang Baoshan would have thought that he was the only one in this earthen cave.

I saw that in the messy grass nest, there were two living people lying panting. In the dim light, they could be vaguely seen covered with scars and bloodstained clothes, which must have been choked by someone.

Wang Baoshan saw that these two hard-working people, perhaps like himself, had been persecuted by gangsters, and his heart was a little more settled. Everyone is a fallen person at the end of the world, and he has a little sympathy for the same disease, and he unconsciously balances a little bit in his heart.

"Dare to ask, where is this?"

"I don't know ......" replied to him, a young man who looked weak, and his voice trembled a little.

"My name is Wang Baoshan, how did you get here?"

"My name is Du Xiaosan, to be honest, I don't know how I came here......" The weak boy is the scholar Du Xiaosan. As he spoke, he seemed to want to give a salute, but because of his injuries, he had to give up.

"What's there to say about this, I think we've all been sold......"

"What is this brother, what is he called, why do you say this?" Wang Baoshan suddenly spoke when he saw the one who had been groaning alone. Moreover, the other party still spoke amazingly, which couldn't help but surprise people.

"Hmph, what's so hard about that...... In the lower three skins, it was originally a good citizen in the city of Guanping. I've never done anything lacking in virtue, and I don't want to be sold by a friend who lacks virtue ......"

The person who opened his mouth was the poor man Sanpi of Guanping City, and at this moment, he was heartbroken and lamented. But when he spoke, his expression was a little unnatural, as if there was a lot of hidden meaning in his words, obviously he still had some unknown circumstances, and it was inconvenient for others to know.

"What do you mean by being sold?" Du Xiaosan, a weak young man, was also surprised when he heard it.

"You mean...... "Although Wang Baoshan is a mountain man, he knows more or less things.

"A friend dragged me to drink, maybe I hadn't opened meat for a long time and drank too much...... The wine is sober, and here it is......"

Sanpi blamed himself for a while, blaming himself for being careless in making friends and being betrayed. Moreover, while he was scolding, he also showed great grief and helplessness.

"This ...... I have no grievances with others, why did I meet these traffickers who killed a thousand knives?" Wang Baoshan already understood a little at this moment, and it was very likely that they were abducted by traffickers if they were like this now.

Moreover, the pain on their bodies and the prison-like environment around them speak for themselves. Apparently, the traffickers deliberately beat them up and locked them up in order to be honest and prevent them from escaping.

"If you have no grievances with others, I will have them! People still care about you so much for money. Sanpi was made even more uncomfortable by his words, so he didn't say a word angrily.

"Are you saying that someone sold us as slaves?" Du Xiaosan, who was on the side, listened to them and realized the seriousness of the matter.

"Alas, don't say it. Can any of you read and write, do you want me to see if I have a slave mark on my left shoulder?" Sanpi interrupted Du Xiaosan without waiting for him to finish speaking, as if he had thought of something frightening.

"Although I read some books when I was a child, I don't know what words are on our shoulders?" Wang Baoshan couldn't help but look at his left shoulder, where there was already a blur of flesh and blood.

"Before I came here, I had heard about human trafficking, and I didn't think it was true, but this ......" Du Xiaosan still couldn't believe what happened to him.

When Sanpi heard this, he asked him, "Listening to your accent, doesn't it look like a local?"

"Well, I'm from Tuyan Mountain, Donghe Prefecture, and I'm a well-traveled student, and when I first arrived here, I met robbers on the road, and after being knocked unconscious, I didn't know anything. When I wake up, that's all here, and..."Du Xiaosan said, suddenly as if he remembered something, and asked in a panic: "Ah, which of you has seen my package?"

Seeing him like this, Sanpi didn't feel a little funny, so he said: "I was robbed, how could there be a wrap in it, besides, we are at this point now, and we don't know how many layers of skin have been pulled." ”

Wang Baoshan listened to Du Xiaosan talk about the package, and thought to himself that his four coppers were gone! Uncle Liu's dozen pairs of straw sandals were probably gone. I didn't know what to do for a while, so I had to ask Sanpi, who was a fellow villager, and said, "Brother Sanpi, where do we look now?"

"Brother Wang, I also want to know where I am!"

"If only I didn't go out of the mountain, it wouldn't be like this......"

Sanpi heard Wang Baoshan say that he regretted it, and he also said with remorse: "How can I not be!

Now, everyone has the same fate, and they have been made into such a field for no reason, not to mention, they don't even know who did it. What's more, what life will be like next, they don't dare to imagine.

"I said, little scholar, since you are a foreigner, but you can come to our Guanping City, you must also know how to write documents, why don't you see what the slave seal on our shoulders is?"

Du Xiaosan, who was still secretly grieving, was asked by Sanpi, and took a closer look at their left shoulder, and found that their skin there was already bloodstained, and it was vaguely visible that there was a circle-shaped brand the size of a wine glass, and there was really a word in it.

He said: "I just know a little, looking at the glyph, it should be a 'Li' character." ”

When Sanpi heard this, his face sank, and his heart was like ashes. The whole person was like a frosted eggplant, and he was stunned.

Du Xiaosan was puzzled when he saw his expression change suddenly, so he asked him why he was like this?

Sanpi didn't hide it, and after sighing heavily, he explained to them the origin of this slave seal.

It turns out that the boundary of this Guanping City has many mountains and lush forests, but there is very little arable land. Although the yield of grain crops is not much, it is otherwise good. For example, the various ore resources in the mountains are not huge, but they are enough to be exploited. Among them, iron ore and copper ore are the majority, and even some gold and silver mines... and other precious and scarce veins, which are occasionally discovered.

Most of these veins are now controlled by powerful city lords, and only a very small part is controlled by wealthy merchants.

Although mining veins and transporting ore are extremely hard work, many people are reluctant to do it. But every mine requires a lot of labor to mine and move. And where does this labor come from? And how do you get them to work honestly? And how do you save open source?

These seemingly difficult problems may be a headache for ordinary people, but for those who have hands and eyes, it is easy to do. The mine owners with backgrounds, in cooperation with the city lords, sent all the criminals who had broken the law to work in the mines, and if they did not work well, they would not be given food. It is also called labor reform, so that we can reform ourselves as soon as possible and become a new person. But the reality is that often none of the people who have been there can come out alive.

In order to collect more money, the city lord secretly sold the lawless people as slaves to some mine owners for personal gain. It is said that the price is quite affordable, almost three taels of silver, you can buy a person.

Like Wang Baoshan and the three of them, there are countless people who are unclear and sold in a daze. In the years of famine, people who have no place to live, people who have no way out, people who are deceived, and people who are forced to be helpless...... And so on, and so on. There are also people who take risks and embark on the road of human trafficking, which is also emerging in an endless stream.

In order to facilitate slavery, the mine owners would brand their own surnames with a red-hot soldering iron on each person they bought to work, so as to distinguish that this person was their private property. Some people even use the number of mine slaves in their own homes to show their status and financial resources.

These three skins are not lost in Guanping City, a native of the city, but he knows some gray things that ordinary people can't touch. But he took every precaution, and it was difficult for fox friends and dog friends to prevent it, and in the end he was cheated by acquaintances.

"I can't imagine that this Guanping City is so dangerous, and it is completely impossible for people to live a good life. ”

After listening to Sanpi's story, Du Xiaosan was angry, obviously unbelievable, he would be sold as a slave.

"You don't care about that Rausch thing, now that we're prisoners, it's better to think about what to do in the future, instead of pursuing some useless things. ”

Du Xiaosan seemed to be touched when he heard Sanpi say this, and he stopped talking, and was silent, not knowing what he was thinking.

And Wang Baoshan, until now, still can't quite understand the meaning of Sanpi's words. When he saw that Sanpi could speak well, he asked him, "Brother Sanpi, what else do you think we can do?"

"What can we do, now we can't help it, we can only resign ourselves to fate!"

In this regard, Sanpi is both helpless and hateful!

As if it were as they said and thought. At this time, from the outside of the earthen kiln, several people walked in.

It was four or five stout men, and they were one by one, dragging four or five scarred bloody people to Wang Baoshan's side.

"Poof......

Like throwing sacks, the bloody people were thrown into the rotten grass by them.

"Today's busy day, the host has a treat. Brothers, we won't get drunk tonight. A stout man at the head patted his dust and beckoned to the rest.

"Great!"

The others listened and cheered, obviously excited.

Wang Baoshan waited for them to leave, and went to see the people who had suffered the same thing, and found that they were not unconscious, but still awake, but their injuries were very serious. And he asked one of the young men, "Little brother, where are you from?"

The young man was beaten very lightly, and his clothes were gradually stained with blood, and he looked miserable. He listened to Wang Baoshan ask him, and said with difficulty: "We are from a village, in the mountains west of the city. ”

"I'm also from a mountain village, how did you get here?"

"The fields in our village were originally cultivated by the villagers themselves, but the old men in the city insisted on expropriating our grain. It is said that if you grow grain, you have to levy grain, this is their law, and if you don't give it, you will break the law, and you will be locked up in a dungeon. This year's harvest in the fields, and several of our families could not hand over the grain, so they were arrested by the guards of the city and sent here. By the way, do you know where this is, why did they beat us up as soon as we came?"

When Wang Baoshan heard this, he sighed and said, "Alas... I can't believe that you are worse than us, and we don't know where this is. ”

Sanpi on the side, listening to their conversation, also interjected, and said: "Brother Wang! Actually, we are still good, I have heard people say that in some mountain villages, if there are no men in anyone's family, the girls of their family will be sold to the brothels in the city, and they will be forced to sell themselves to pick up customers, then life is better than death!"

"Brother Sanpi, what you said is true? is this really such a thing?" After Wang Baoshan heard this, his face was full of disbelief, obviously startled by Sanpi's words, and his heart was full of shock.

"Yes, we also have such a thing, I heard that most of them couldn't stand it later, so they killed themselves" After the young man said this, he also nodded at Wang Baoshan, saying that the things were all true, and it was still very ordinary.

"What's going on?"

Wang Baoshan couldn't understand whether this Guanping City was really so chaotic? Why some people were so bad and could be so bad, didn't they have a little conscience?