The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 435 Life and Death (Part 1)

Qin Huai carefully examined the child lying on the ground, clutching his stomach, too weak even to groan.

For some reason, he felt that this child might not be Zhao Cheng'an. Even if the mayfly liked to court death and experience all aspects of life, it was just a spirit in its first life, not a human. It was impossible for it to act like a human so convincingly.

The spirit's first incarnation cannot be hidden. Whether it is curiosity about the human world or indifference towards the creatures around them, that heartfelt alienation and vague sense of superiority can be recognized at a glance, especially since Qin Huai has been in contact with the spirit for so long.

The child on the ground was very indifferent; in other words, he was very lifeless.

He showed no joy when a potential buyer might come along, no resistance when the traffickers roughly pried open his mouth to show the customer his teeth, no resentment when he was kicked to the ground, and even when he lay on the ground clutching his stomach, it wasn't so much because of pain, but because he needed to put on an act.

His eyes were filled with numbness, a numbness that made him unable to live or dare to die, a numbness that he could only lie there in a daze. Perhaps lying like this for the rest of his life was the best form of numbness.

Spirits and monsters should not be numb.

After determining that the child was most likely not Zhao Cheng'an, Qin Huai began to observe the others.

Human traffickers sell not only children, but also teenage girls and even adult women.

Of course, there wasn't just one human trafficker outside the city. The traffickers were both men and women, mostly middle-aged, and relatively thin. When facing customers, they always had a fawning smile on their faces, revealing their big yellow teeth or rotten teeth when they grinned. But when facing the goods, their faces would instantly change, turning fierce and resorting to beatings and curses. When communicating with their fellow traffickers, they would proudly impart their methods of buying and dealing with people.

For example, there are places where goods are so cheap that people are willing to go with you without even paying for food. Cheapness comes with risk. These places are often severely drought-stricken, where even grass roots and tree bark have been eaten, and people have resorted to cannibalism. It is common for people to go there but not return alive. However, if you really come back with a full load, you will definitely make a fortune, after all, it is a business with no capital.

Of course, cheap prices also mean low quality. It's impossible to find the most valuable twelve or thirteen-year-old, pretty, and charming young women in such places without spending money—these good girls were sold out years ago. You can only pick up some half-grown boys or women who voluntarily sell themselves for food.

As for adult males, human traffickers dare not take them, what if they get double-crossed? As for the rest, they look down on them, they are likely to die on the way, and they are likely to be unsellable once they arrive. These shrewd people will not do business that loses money.

Some human traffickers like to do this kind of business with no capital, while others have all the good stuff and take the high-end route.

More often than not, they're a mixed bag, buying anything and everything. These days, people are cheaper than livestock, so they'll take whatever they can get. These small-time human traffickers can't compete with big-time dealers; as long as they can make a profit when business is bad, they're happy.

Qin Huai never imagined that one day he would hear a group of human traffickers complaining about the bad market and poor business.

When there are no buyers, the traffickers gather together and chat about their business, mainly to show off.

They chatted animatedly about whose young virgin had been bought for a high price by someone in the alley, whose decent-looking boy had been taken in by a gentleman with peculiar tastes, what kind of women Mr. XX liked, and what kind of people the XX mansion was looking to buy recently. They were not worried at all about their goods running away with their money.

There's really no need to worry.

These human traffickers share a common tactic: they neither feed the goods nor starve them, leaving them in a state of semi-death, where they would rather lie down than sit and breathe. These goods typically travel across provinces with them, sometimes even several, as they cannot afford transportation and must rely entirely on walking.

Those who survive to be sold here are all in relatively good physical condition; those who are not physically fit and cannot endure the hardship would have died on the way. In the words of these human traffickers, this is also a method of screening the quality of the goods.

They need to maintain a good reputation in this business. If they sell sickly animals to customers, and the animals die after a few days of care, the customers will definitely cause trouble. Although this screening method has a high loss rate, it is effective.

Of course, this screening method cannot be used for high-end goods, which are sold by weight. The scale not far away is specifically used to weigh high-end goods, setting the price per pound. Customers don't want the lighter ones, which weigh only forty or fifty pounds, as they feel they are too difficult to raise.

Therefore, these goods, which are basically only good for lying down and breathing, are also divided into 3, 6, and 9 grades. Low-end goods, let alone cakes, are lucky to get two ounces of black beans a day. Mid-range goods, like the child rolling on the ground, have cakes and sweet potatoes to eat. If they are half full, they look more energetic and sell better.

The high-end traffickers had much better food: millet mixed with other grains cooked into porridge, along with cabbage. The slightly more generous traffickers would even buy ham from the city and add it to the porridge. While others ate cold, hard, and smelly food, they were the only ones who could have a hot meal.

The traffickers gathered and chatted right next to the pot of porridge. They talked while keeping an eye on the pot. The animals lying on the ground, weak and listless, could only watch from a distance and dared not approach, for fear that if they got close, they would be mistaken for thieves and beaten up.

Yes, even in places where people live under the open sky and on the ground, and where human traffickers gather to sell their goods, there are thieves.

A thief who specializes in stealing food.

At first, the traffickers lost beans, cakes, sweet potatoes, and other grains. They didn't pay much attention to these items because the quantity wasn't large, and they assumed that some of the bolder traffickers had stolen them. Since these goods were about to be sold, the traffickers didn't bother to investigate.

When the porridge in the pot started to decrease, the traffickers realized something was wrong. They began questioning and searching, thinking that this thief was incredibly audacious and dared to steal any kind of food. The porridge in this pot was mixed with millet, which they usually couldn't bear to eat!
After several days of investigation, the thief was not found, and the amount of food stolen only increased. Even a folding basket that a human trafficker surnamed Zhang had spent a lot of money to buy was lost.

Enraged, Zhang Da threatened that if he caught the thief, he would break his legs and throw him into a well.

Of course, this was just said in anger; being thrown into a well is a very luxurious way to die. Being thrown into a well means that the water in that well will be undrinkable for a while. Digging a well costs a lot of money, so what kind of family would throw someone into a well?

"This petty thief is definitely not from around here; he's most likely from some city. I really can't understand it. Which petty thief is so bored that he wouldn't steal from the city but instead steals from us, and he even stole my whole bag of folding baskets!"

"That cost me a full 50 copper coins! That's enough to have a meal at a meat shop!" Zhang Dayue said, getting angrier and angrier, almost to the point of stamping his feet and beating his chest.

"That's right. Business is tough these days, and the price of people is dropping every day. At this time last year, a young virgin could be sold to a wealthy family as a maid for five taels of silver, but now she can only be sold to a commoner in the alley for four taels of silver."

"When you encounter someone with a good appearance who is treated to good food and drink, you end up losing money after calculating the costs. Now, they're even being targeted by petty thieves. Why don't these petty thieves go after the royal palace or the official residence? Why do they come here to steal from us poor people?"

Qin Huai: ...

The Unfortunate One

Qin Huai glanced at the goods lying on the ground, their condition—whether alive or dead—and then at the group of human traffickers huddled around the pot, spitting as they talked, their voices rising and their faces turning red with excitement. He felt that Beiping at this time was truly an absurd place, absurd both inside and outside the city.

This place is the outer city gate of Beiping City. Qin Huai guessed it after observing the people in the vicinity and hearing the accents of the human traffickers.

While reading Chen Huihong's memories, Qin Huai followed Chen Huihong and traveled almost all over the inner and outer city of Beiping, gaining a deep understanding of the architecture of Beiping during that era and the local accents.

Combining this with the traffickers' claims of a severe drought in Shanxi, so severe that cannibalism was occurring, officials were forcing the people to rebel, and the people were suffering immensely, with many places so terrifying that even the traffickers dared not go there, Qin Huai could roughly deduce that Fuyou's memory occurred a few years later than when Chen Huihong finally arrived in Beiping. He wondered if the legend of the "mad lady" still lingered in Beiping at this time, and whether Chen Huihong had left Beiping by then.

Qin Huai continued listening to the human traffickers cursing the petty thieves, but his thoughts had already drifted elsewhere.

Qin Huai has probably already guessed the time and place, but the most important person is still missing.

What about Zhao Cheng'an?

This was the first time Qin Huai had been unable to find anyone after entering his memories.

Where are people? ? ?

This place was certainly not short of people; there were more than a dozen human traffickers alone, and hundreds of scattered goods. Because there were so many people and so many different kinds of things, and everyone looked thin and dirty, plus Qin Huai had no idea what Zhao Cheng'an looked like in his first life.

This directly led to Qin Huai encountering the biggest problem he had ever faced since he began looking at his memories, a problem he had never encountered before.

The person in question cannot be found.

Dude, even if you're a mayfly, this is still a bit outrageous.

Unable to find anyone, Qin Huai decided to wait by the pot. Even spirits need to eat and drink when they come to the human world; if they weren't stealing from within the city, the petty thief specifically targeting these human traffickers outside the city must be Zhao Cheng'an.

Rather than taking the initiative, it's better to wait and see; Zhao Cheng'an is bound to come and steal the porridge anyway. Qin Huai didn't know how Zhao Cheng'an managed to have so many people watching him without catching him, but Qin Huai could only keep an eye on the pot for now; he had nothing else to watch.

Qin Huai spent the entire afternoon staking out the location with the human traffickers. The porridge in the pot was ready, and the traffickers began to distribute it. The sounds of people drinking porridge and swallowing saliva filled the air, but Zhao Cheng'an did not appear.

Seeing that the porridge was still there, the trafficker Qin Huai had spotted first said smugly, "As expected, Brother Liu's method worked. With so many of us standing guard by the pot, that little thief didn't dare to come near."

"Hey guys, hang in there for a few more days, these hot items will be sold out soon. Whatever's left, we'll just have to deal with whatever we can, and then we'll go to a meat shop in town and have a good meal!"

"Let's go to Erhunpu! Caitou, you really have no taste. If you're going to go anywhere, let's have a meal at Babaozhai!"

"You mean Babaozhai? Why don't you mention Yongheju and Taifenglou? Can you even afford them? Do you know how much a plate of peanuts costs in those restaurants?"

A group of people were bragging when one of them, who looked the most normal and was the most well-off, was wearing the best clothes and was carrying mostly high-end goods. Suddenly, the trafficker screamed.

"Where's my pig's head meat? Where's my offal? Where's my rice wine? I spent a full 80 coins at the meat shop to buy top-quality pig's head meat! That damned thief, how did he know what I bought!"

"What? You're eating so well?"

Where did you hide it?

"My corn cob is gone too!"

"You even hid corn cobs?!"

"Damn thief, my steamed buns!"

"You still have white flour steamed buns?!"

After a period of chaos, the traffickers were horrified to discover that while they had managed to keep their porridge, their secret stash of food for themselves had vanished.

Most people lost something, and the few who didn't lose anything did so because they had nothing to lose. This time, the thief used a feint to strike from the east while attacking from the west, and stole a large amount of stuff in one go.

Cai Tou parted ways with the group of wealthy people who had special meals, feeling very indignant. He returned to his own territory and was furious when he saw the group of inferior people lying on the ground.

He was one of the very few human traffickers in this group who were daring and unscrupulous, selling only inferior goods. He originally wanted to make a fortune, but when he arrived in Beiping, he found that these inferior goods were not easy to sell. Let alone make a fortune, he was lucky if he didn't get stuck with them.

Back in his own territory, looking at the half-dead goods, Cai Tou was furious. He was about to kick the nearest kid when he realized that these were the most valuable and potentially profitable mid-range goods in his possession. He quickly stopped himself and started cursing instead.

"Where's the water? You don't even know how to fetch water, all you do is lie on the ground all day waiting to be fed, right? I must have had the worst luck in eight lifetimes to pick up these things. You've eaten and drunk my food all the way here, and I've eaten a lot of grain, but in the end, I can't sell any of you."

“I’m telling you, if you keep selling your stuff like this tomorrow, I’ll sell it all to coal mines and brick kilns. I guarantee you’ll all be worked to death in there within three months.”

"Please give me some energy!"

"Go fetch some water, I'm thirsty and need a drink!"

Several children who could barely move struggled to their feet, including the one who had almost been bought in the afternoon, who staggered and carried a jar to fetch water.

"Pah!" Cai Tou spat on the ground. "If I had known the way back would be so difficult, and that I would have to take a detour and waste so much of my food by half a month, I would have just bought some cheaper food nearby."

"Damn it, they all complain about being poor, but secretly they're all eating better than the next. They're even eating white flour buns, pig's head meat, and drinking yellow wine. I've barely even had a bite of white flour buns. Serves them right, I deserve to steal from you!"

After scolding Caitou, he went to check his own food. The next second, a shrill scream came from Caitou.

"Damn thief! Not satisfied with white flour buns and pork head meat, he stole my black flour buns too! He stole all ten buns! That's my food for four days!"

"My steamed buns!"

(End of this chapter)