Bai Ling looked at it in silence, and suddenly smiled a little self-deprecatingly.

Lin Jieyu once gave her a golden wire cage, but now she really fell into the cage.

Or is she in a cage all along, unaware of it?

Bai Ling withdrew his gaze and continued forward.

The girls who were trapped in the hemp rope before and after her came from the various state capitals of the Great Zhou, and most of them had never been here; And the few people who grew up in Pingjing can recognize at a glance what this place is.

They screamed almost immediately, and then desperately struggled to escape.

But the whips of the strong men fell again, and they beat not only the girls who were about to flee, but also those who cried out for help in panic.

The scolding soon overshadowed the girls' cries, and they huddled together trembling to listen to the reprimands and whips.

After a few moments, order was restored to the group, and the group walked slowly forward again, until at a corner, a young girl in the group suddenly ran with force towards the convex corner of the hard stone wall, and after a dull crash, she slowly fell under the corner.

The man on the side hurriedly stepped forward to check, and without asking, he kicked a few times, followed by a series of unbearable scolding.

The fallen girl made no sound, and the man leaned over to sniff, cursed again, and then bent down, untied the rope from the corpse's wrist, and left her on the side of the road.

Bai Ling was silent all the way, and slowly followed the crowd forward.

As she passed by the girl who had died against the wall, she looked away a little reluctantly.

Almost at this moment, she heard someone behind her whispering, "...... I just heard them say that this place is called 'Hundred Flowers'...... What is Baihuaya? ”

“…… I don't know. The other replied in a whispered voice.

With a "snap-" snap, the whip fell to the ground beside them.

"Don't talk to each other!!"

The "golden wire cage" in front is getting closer and closer.

It was the largest building in Baihuaya.

From a distance, it looks like a huge high-rise building, and when you walk in, you realize that the buildings there are connected to each other, forming a circular tower.

At the highest point of this tall building, the hollowed-out golden carved railing is erected in the shape of a golden wire cage.

At this time, the golden wire cage was also full of lights - it seems that last night, a noble person sang all night here......

Three years ago, Burling had cast a distant glimpse of the place one night. She remembered that the men and women in the fancy shirts looked as small as ants. Ah Li also told her that it was a place where only nobles could haunt.

Sure enough, about a block away from the main building, Bai Ling's team reversed course.

Prisoners like them obviously can't get straight from the front of the golden wire cage.

The leader led them into a narrow alley, and then walked all the way to the outermost flower lane.

Bai Ling also recognized it.

The flowers are filthy and dilapidated, and when the women who live in Baihuaya are old or sick enough to make even the most inferior "tail phoenix", they will live there.

Now it seems that the new chicks who have entered Baihuaya will also be thrown in......

Passing through a familiar intersection, Bai Ling looked in the direction where Aunt Shen was, but all he could see was layers of black bricks and tiles, and the sky that had been cut into long lines.

Bai Ling involuntarily thought of Lin Jieyu again.

That's how she grew up back then?

……

At night, Bai Ling finally figured out the situation.

The group of people who came in with her were not the daughters of ordinary people, they were the "criminals" of Da Zhou.

Being able to become a "criminal" means that their original background will not be too bad. Most of these people were elders in the family who committed serious crimes, which led to Zhulian, and then the male dependents were exiled and the female dependents entered the Sect Division.

A total of 37 of these young women were escorted from the Workshop Division to Baihuaya, and they were held at the highest of the two towers on the east and west sides of Baihuaya.

But the house where the girls lived had no windows, and all the windows were nailed shut.

The door was heavily locked with iron locks, and people watched them all year round - these handymen who worked in the flowers were called "turtle paws".

How brutal these turtle paws were, they had already felt this morning.

After dark, someone came up to bring food to the girls.

The man went into the house first, hung a candle on a nail near the doorframe, and the dimly lit room finally became a little brighter.

Then he bent down and handed out a bowl to each of the girls.

"Take it all! In the future, this bowl will be the proof of your meal, how many bowls there are, and how many meals you make. ”

There was silence all around, and no one answered.

"Serve all the bowls to Lao Tzu!" The man suddenly changed his tone and said sharply.

The girls shuddered and picked up the bowls in unison.

The man took an iron spoon and served them one by one—some kind of flowing, unidentified mush.

"I'll come and collect it in half an hour, give me food quickly!"

With that, the man quickly left—along with the candle he had brought with him.

The whole room was plunged into darkness again.

In the silence, the girls heard his footsteps drifting away, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

On the tower, it seems that they are the only ones left.

Bai Ling sniffed the contents of the bowl - although the contents in front of her couldn't compare to the "last meal" she had eaten at the Sentencing Division this morning, it was still much better than the food in the prison before.

She tasted a small bite first, the taste was really bad, it was probably a big pot of paste made from some vegetable roots and millet powder, but it didn't affect eating......

Just as Bai Ling drank heavily, she suddenly heard a voice with a little annoyance coming from the darkness, "...... Why didn't he give us chopsticks, and he didn't have a spoon, how can we eat this? ”

"Where is the food in this bowl, it's pig food......

“…… What the hell is this place, do any of you know? ”

"It's a Qinglou...... suddenly a trembling voice came from Bai Ling's left hand, "Baihuaya is the largest Qinglou in Pingjing." ”

Bai Ling obviously felt that the surroundings suddenly quieted down, and someone didn't hold the bowl in his hand for a while, and with a bang, the bowl fell to the ground and fell into a puddle with the vegetable paste.

They finally realized why someone had killed themselves by hitting a wall this morning.

After a few moments, everyone burst into tears.

Their first night in Baihuaya passed in the cries of each other's fear.

On this night, someone was beaten by a turtle's paw because he broke a bowl;

Some people are on the third watch in the middle of the night, lying on a low bed and covering their mouths and silently homesick;

Someone tossed and turned, unable to sleep, and then fell to his knees on the west side of the house, where there was a crack in a wooden house that had fallen into disrepair.

Bright lights in the distance shine through the gaps, casting a shallow path of light in the room.

Lying in the corner of the room with his eyes closed, he heard the man whispering prayers for the safety of his brothers and father.

She turned her head with some concern, and saw a girl about her own age, kneeling with her hands folded and her face full of tears, kneeling under the light path of the gap, muttering softly.