Mikago

Outside all those wooden cages, traffickers and buyers are pointing and haggling.Those rich people in bright clothes covered their mouths and noses with handkerchiefs soaked in perfume, and looked at the people in the cage without mercy.

Ye Zuolan was terrified watching, Ye Yueshan suddenly grabbed him hard, and asked nervously: "You said... Uncle Zhong, is he trying to sell us?!"

Ye Zuolan's eyelids twitched, and she immediately looked up at Uncle Zhong.And at this moment, two big and three rough human traffickers whispered to each other, and suddenly strode towards this side.

Ye Zuolan's heart was about to jump out of his throat, he wanted to run away instinctively, but his right hand was firmly held by Uncle Zhong.

"Don't be afraid." Uncle Zhong looked down at him, "Don't panic."

In a blink of an eye, the two big men stood in front of the three masters and servants. Without saying a word, they reached out to pick Ye Zuolan's chin rudely, and clicked their tongues twice.

"These two little dolls, looking carefully at their delicate features, really have a bit of taste. Why don't you sell them to us two brothers, and give them a good place to settle down."

Ye Yueshan covered her mouth with a "wow" in fright. Although Ye Zuolan also turned pale, she managed to maintain her composure.

Uncle Zhong was flustered when he saw these two big men, but he said with a smile: "I am afraid this is the first time for the two nobles to come to Nanshi to make a fortune? The old man is a relative of the knife maker Lu Yinger. There is a severe drought in his hometown, so Come and visit relatives and friends."

The two human traffickers have been buying and selling people in other places all year round, but when they heard the name of the knife maker, they immediately looked at each other and smiled: "So there is a way to go north, and the brother doesn't bother the old man to get rich." Let go with a wave.

The opportunity was not lost, the three masters and servants immediately quickened their pace like mice crossing the street, walked through the entire Nanshi City without looking sideways, and walked out through another door.

"Uncle Zhong, what do they mean by the way to the north?" Leaving Nanshi, Ye Zuolan reluctantly collected her soul, and suddenly raised her head and asked.

"That's why they misunderstood me."

Uncle Zhong stretched out his hand to touch the top of Ye Zuolan's head.His palms trembled slightly, and he seemed to be very nervous just now.

Ye Yueshan also asked: "The good place that those two people mentioned is a good place to settle down, and what kind of place is it?"

Uncle Zhong sighed, and he didn't seem to want to answer, but he felt that it was necessary to let the siblings understand some worldly skills.

"They said...it should be a brothel. Dolls in their teens, regardless of gender, as long as they are attractive, they will be selected by the bustard or turtle slave first. If they are selected, the price will be several times that of ordinary slaves."

Ye Zuolan had never heard of such a thing before, and she was dumbfounded: "The Daning Dynasty banned human trafficking, so the government doesn't care?"

Uncle Zhong smiled wryly and said, "The rules are not theirs, their families are not torn apart, and their love is not taken away... Naturally, they don't want to care about it. Don't talk about it, let's go quickly."

To the west of Nanshi, after about five or six hundred steps, the depths of the winding alley suddenly opened up.They finally came to a barely popular house.

I saw broken baskets and all kinds of sundries piled up at the foot of the muddy wall. Millet skins and stems were bundled into bundles, like steamed buns made of millet.

The door in the center of the wall was closed tightly, and two faded door gods were stuck to it.Under the left and right eaves, each hung a tattered white paper lantern.

Uncle Zhong stepped forward and knocked on the door, and it took a long while for footsteps to come lazily.The door opened, but it was a young man not much older than Ye Zuolan who opened the door.

"Wa'er." Uncle Zhong called to the boy: "I will lead the two of them here and wait for your mistress to come back. You must not tell others about this matter, otherwise..."

Nawa'er was smart, and nodded before he finished speaking.The three masters and servants rushed to the threshold and closed the door again. Uncle Zhong ordered Wal to fetch water and the siblings to wash off the mud on their faces and hands.

After taking a short breath, Ye Zuolan began to survey the surrounding environment.

Behind the gate is a medium-sized courtyard, and there are two inverted houses on the south side.The main hall in the north is open, and you can see the towering shrine in the center at a glance. Inside is a white-haired old man wrapped in a scarf and holding a gourd in his hand.

"That's Master Hua Tuo." Zhong Bo said.

Of course Ye Zuolan knew that Hua Tuo was the patriarch of medicine, and based on this, he inferred that Uncle Zhong's daughter and son-in-law should be doing business in medicinal materials or barefoot doctor.They all say "the heart of a doctor's parents", which makes him feel a little more at ease.

Behind the main room is another dirty low wall, with four leaky windows lined up on the wall, and a door opening in the middle, leading to a larger, but also more empty, backyard.

The layout of the backyard is a bit weird.Almost all the houses are crowded on the west side, and there is a large piece of bare grass in the center, where a group of chickens are scattered and a dozen or so three-story medicine plaque shelves are arranged, like plum blossom piles for martial arts.

There are no houses on the east side of the yard, but there are several unusually tall pomegranate trees.Right now is the flowering season, the golden red pomegranate flowers all over the tree are jumping like flames with the wind, and there are residual red falling under the tree, like dripping blood.

Looking carefully, there is a wooden door hidden under the pomegranate tree, the door is closed tightly, and there are actually two shining and shining shop heads on it, which seem to be made of pure gold.

A heavy brass lock hangs between the shop heads.

Uncle Zhong arranged Zuolan and Yueshan to live in two inverted rooms on the west side, and specifically told them not to walk around casually, let alone make loud noises, so as not to be discovered.

In addition, he also specifically warned that there are many ghosts and ghosts in Dayefang, if you hear any strange noises or smell any bad smells, you must not be curious.

Also, the most crucial point—absolutely, absolutely, you can’t push open the wooden door with the golden headliner.

After remembering all these considerations, the Ye family siblings began to live in seclusion here.

For the next two days, Uncle Zhong went out all day to inquire about the news of the Ye family's master and wife, and would not return until dusk.The lives of Zuo Lan and Yue Shan depend on Wa Er to take care of them.But it is said to be taking care of, but in fact it is just providing three meals a day.

Until noon on the third day, Uncle Zhong rushed back from the outside ahead of time, took out a stack of torn papers from his arms tremblingly, and said that he took the risk to bribe the jailer and asked Ye Kaiquan to write a letter in his own hand.

Uncle Zhong was illiterate, so he sent the letter directly to Ye Zuolan.Zuo Lan unfolded the letter paper, and the very familiar fonts immediately came into view, but the handwriting was scattered and the ink marks were different in thickness, obviously written in a hurry.

Thinking of his father's possible situation at this moment, he suddenly felt sad and choked up. He waited for a while before he started to read the letter, but he was suddenly stunned.

This letter was not addressed to him.

"Sister...this..."

He felt pain in his heart, and hurriedly handed the letter to Ye Yueshan.

Ye Yueshan reached out to take it, only to see that it was written on the letter paper——

"My daughter Yueshan, it has been five days since I left you! Since you were born, you have never been away from your parents for such a long time. You were originally a delicate flower that the family loved and loved, but now Drifting with the wind. Thinking of this, I can't help feeling ashamed as a father.

Shan'er, you must want to know what kind of heinous crime you committed as a father, and even made your family suffer along with it.And those officials must have taken a lot of stigma to frame me... Right now, I have no allies in the court.Today I will tell you all the truth of the matter, I only hope that Shan'er can understand the difficulties of being a father and understand the dangers of this officialdom. "

"The officialdom is dangerous, but what's the use of talking to me..."

Ye Yueshan muttered something, then peeked at the people beside her.Ye Zuolan's eyes were blank, and she was obviously lost.