AGN -Chapter 435 Shengsheng (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 was probably not Zhao Cheng’an. Even if mayflies loved courting death and enjoyed experiencing all facets of life, during the first life they were still spirits, not humans. It was impossible for one to imitate a human this perfectly.

The spirits of the first life could never fully hide what they were. Whether it was their curiosity toward the mortal world or their indifference toward surrounding creatures, there was always an innate sense of detachment and faint superiority that could be recognized at a glance—especially now that Qin Huai had spent so much time around spirits.

But the child on the ground was utterly numb.

To put it another way, utterly lifeless.

When he might finally gain a buyer, he showed no joy. When the trafficker roughly pried open his mouth to show a customer his teeth, he did not resist. When he was kicked to the ground, he felt no anger. Even now, lying there clutching his stomach, it seemed less because of pain and more because he knew he was supposed to act that way.

His eyes held only numbness—the kind where living was unbearable, dying was impossible, and so all one could do was drift through life in a daze. Perhaps lying there forever like this was the best numbness of all.

Spirits should not be numb.

After determining that this child was most likely not Zhao Cheng’an, Qin Huai began observing the others.

The traffickers were not selling only children. There were young girls, even adult women.

And naturally, there was more than one trafficker outside the city walls.

Some were men, some women, mostly middle-aged. Compared to the people they sold, they were not as gaunt. Whenever facing customers, their faces overflowed with ingratiating smiles, exposing yellowed teeth or rotting mouths. Yet when dealing with their “goods,” their expressions changed instantly into vicious scowls, accompanied by beatings and curses. And when talking among themselves, they smugly exchanged “business wisdom” about buying and handling people.

For example, which regions had the cheapest “goods”—so cheap that all it took was a couple of meals for someone to willingly follow them away without even demanding money.

Cheapness came with risks. Such places were usually disaster-stricken famine zones where even tree bark and grass roots had already been eaten clean, and people had begun eating one another. Going there alive and not returning was common. But if one managed to return fully loaded, the profits were enormous. After all, it was a business with virtually no capital investment.

Of course, cheap also meant poor quality.

In places like that, it was impossible to obtain the most valuable stock—pretty, delicate twelve- or thirteen-year-old virgin girls—without paying. Those “premium goods” had already been sold out years ago. The only ones left were half-grown boys or women willing to sell themselves for food.

As for adult men, the traffickers didn’t dare buy them. What if they got robbed in turn? The rest they simply looked down on. Weak people died easily on the road and were hard to sell after arrival. These shrewd traders had no interest in losing money.

Some traffickers specialized in these zero-cost ventures, while others handled only premium merchandise and catered to high-end buyers.

Most, however, accepted anything they could get. In these times, people were cheaper than livestock. They collected whatever was available. Small-time traffickers like them could not compete with the large human merchants. As long as there was money to be made, even a little, they were satisfied.

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

Whenever there were no buyers around, the traffickers gathered together to enthusiastically discuss trade—mostly to brag.

Whose virgin girl had been bought at a high price by someone from the alley districts. Which decent-looking boy had been taken in by some lord with peculiar tastes. What sort of “goods” a certain master preferred. Which manor was recently looking to purchase a batch of people.

They spoke with flying spit and complete ease, utterly unconcerned about their merchandise escaping.

And indeed, they had no reason to worry.

The traffickers shared a common method: never let the merchandise eat their fill, but never let them starve to death either. They kept them in a half-dead state where, if they could lie down, they would never waste energy sitting up to breathe.

Most of these people had followed the traffickers across provinces, some even across several provinces. To save money, transportation was out of the question. They walked the entire way.

Those who survived long enough to reach this market were already the physically stronger ones. The weak had died on the road long ago. In the traffickers’ words, this was also a method of “screening product quality.”

After all, reputation mattered in this business. If they sold sickly people who died after only a few days, customers would come looking for trouble. Though the mortality rate was high, the method was effective.

Of course, premium goods could not be screened this way. Premium goods were sold by weight.

Not far away stood a scale specifically for weighing high-end merchandise. A certain price per jin. Buyers wouldn’t even consider anyone weighing only forty or fifty jin, thinking they would be too hard to keep alive.

Thus, even among these nearly lifeless people lying on the ground, there existed different ranks.

Low-end goods were lucky to receive two liang of black beans a day, let alone flatbread. Mid-tier goods—like the child rolling on the ground nearby—got flatbread, sweet potatoes, and assorted coarse grains. Half-full stomachs at least made them look more spirited and easier to sell.

The premium goods ate very well.

Millet mixed with grains cooked into porridge, plus cabbage. Some more generous traffickers even bought leftovers from city restaurants and mixed them into the porridge. While everyone else ate cold, hard, stale scraps, only these people got a mouthful of something hot.

The traffickers gathered beside the pot of porridge as they chatted, watching it closely. The half-dead living creatures lying nearby could only stare from a distance, too afraid to approach, terrified that getting close would earn them a savage beating as thieves.

Yes.

Even in this place—where the sky served as a blanket and the earth as a bed, where traffickers openly gathered to sell people—there were thieves.

A thief who specialized in stealing food.

At first, it was only beans, flatbread, sweet potatoes, and other coarse grains disappearing. The traffickers paid little attention since the quantities were small. They assumed some bold merchandise had secretly stolen food, and since these people would soon be sold anyway, the traffickers could not be bothered to care.

But once the porridge in the pot started decreasing, the traffickers realized something was wrong.

They began questioning and searching, furious that this thief had become so outrageously bold—stealing every kind of food imaginable. That porridge contained millet! They themselves normally couldn’t bear to eat such things!

Yet after several days of searching, they still failed to catch the culprit. Instead, even more food vanished. One trafficker surnamed Zhang even lost an entire bag of expensive leftovers he had bought at great cost.

Enraged, Zhang Da declared viciously that if he ever caught the thief, he would break the man’s legs and throw him into a well.

Of course, that was only angry talk.

Throwing someone into a well was an extravagantly luxurious way to die. Once a corpse went into a well, the water couldn’t be used for quite some time. Digging a well cost serious money. What kind of wealthy household could afford to throw people into wells?

“This little thief definitely isn’t one of us,” Zhang Da cursed. “Ninety percent chance he’s some street rat from the city. I seriously can’t understand it. What kind of idiot ignores all the valuables in the city just to come steal from us? And he stole my entire bag of leftovers!”

“That bag cost me a full fifty copper coins! Enough for a meal at a two-meat restaurant!”

The more Zhang Da spoke, the angrier he became, nearly stamping his feet and pounding his chest.

“Exactly! Business is terrible these days. Human prices keep dropping every single day. Last year a virgin girl sold to a wealthy household as a maid could fetch five taels of silver. Now even selling her into the alley districts only gets four taels.”

“You spend money feeding and dressing the pretty ones, then after calculating the costs you realize you barely profit or even lose money. And now we’re being targeted by thieves too. Why doesn’t this thief dare steal from princely estates or official mansions? Why come rob poor miserable people like us?”

Qin Huai: …

“Poor miserable people.”

He glanced at the “goods” lying on the ground, impossible to tell whether they were alive or dead, then looked back at the traffickers surrounding the pot, talking loudly with flushed faces and spraying spit everywhere as their excitement rose.

At that moment, Qin Huai felt that Beiping in this era was truly absurd.

Absurd inside the city walls.

Absurd outside them as well.

This place was the outer gate district of Beiping City. Qin Huai had guessed as much after observing the surroundings and listening to the traffickers’ accents.

While viewing Chen Huihong’s memories, he had practically traveled throughout both the inner and outer districts of Beiping alongside her. He was extremely familiar with the architecture of the era and the local dialects.

Combined with what the traffickers were saying—about devastating droughts in Jin territory severe enough to lead to cannibalism, officials driving the people into rebellion, countless lives ruined, the common people living in misery, and some regions so horrifying that even traffickers dared not enter—

Qin Huai could roughly determine that the time period of this mayfly memory was several years later than when Chen Huihong had last come to Beiping City.

No one knew whether the legend of the Mad Young Lady still existed in Beiping City at this time, or whether Chen Huihong had already left the city.

Qin Huai continued listening to the traffickers curse the thief, but his thoughts had already drifted elsewhere.

By now, he had more or less figured out the time and place.

Only the most important person was still missing.

Where was Zhao Cheng’an?

This was the first time Qin Huai had entered a memory and failed to find the person he was looking for.

Where the hell was he???

Naturally, this place was not lacking in people. There were more than a dozen traffickers alone, and the scattered “goods” numbered well over a hundred.

The problem was that there were too many people and too much clutter. Everyone looked filthy and emaciated, and Qin Huai had absolutely no idea what Zhao Cheng’an had looked like in his first life.

As a result, Qin Huai encountered the biggest problem he had ever faced while viewing memories—

He couldn’t find the main character.

Seriously, man. Even if you’re a mayfly spirit, this is a little ridiculous.

Since he couldn’t find him, Qin Huai decided to squat beside the pot and wait.

Spirits who came to the mortal world still needed to eat and drink. A petty thief who ignored the city and specifically targeted the traffickers outside the city walls had to be Zhao Cheng’an.

Rather than actively searching, it was better to wait for the rabbit by the stump. Zhao Cheng’an would definitely come steal porridge again sooner or later.

Qin Huai had no idea how Zhao Cheng’an managed to steal food under the watch of so many people without getting caught, but for now all he could do was stare at the pot. There was nothing else worth watching anyway.

And so Qin Huai camped out with the traffickers for an entire afternoon.

The porridge was eventually finished, and the traffickers began distributing bowls. The sounds of slurping porridge and swallowing saliva overlapped endlessly, yet Zhao Cheng’an still failed to appear.

Seeing that no porridge had gone missing, the trafficker Qin Huai had noticed earlier smugly declared:

“Told you Brother Liu’s method works. With all of us guarding the pot together, that little thief doesn’t dare come close anymore.”

“Just hang on a few more days, brothers. These premium goods will all be sold soon. After that we’ll dump the leftovers and head into the city for a proper meal at the two-meat restaurant!”

“Two-meat restaurant? Caitou, your ambitions are too small. If we’re going, we should eat at Eight Treasures House!”

“Eight Treasures House? Why not say Yonghe Residence or Taifeng Tower while you’re at it? Can you even afford those places? Do you know how many taels a single plate of peanuts costs there?”

The men were in the middle of bragging when one of the traffickers suddenly let out a shrill scream.

Compared to the others, this man looked relatively well-fed, dressed better, and dealt almost exclusively in high-end merchandise.

“My pork head meat?! My organ stew?! My yellow wine?! I spent a full eighty copper coins at the two-meat restaurant buying top-quality pork head meat! Damn that filthy thief—how did he know I bought all this?!”

“What?! You’ve been eating that well?”

“Where did you hide it?”

“My corn buns are gone too!”

“You had corn buns hidden away too?!”

“That damned thief! My white-flour steamed buns!”

“You had white-flour buns too?!!”

After a burst of complete chaos, the traffickers realized in horror that while the porridge had been protected, all the private food they had secretly hidden for themselves was gone.

Most of them had lost something.

The few who hadn’t lost anything were simply because they had nothing worth stealing.

This time the thief had used a diversion tactic—attacking the real target directly and pulling off a massive haul in one go.

Caitou angrily parted ways with these wealthy traffickers who could afford private meals and returned to his own area. The moment he looked at the low-grade goods sprawled weakly on the ground, his temper exploded.

He was one of the rare traffickers who specialized entirely in low-end merchandise, the kind of bold, zero-capital trafficker who gambled everything on cheap stock. He had originally hoped to make a fortune, only to discover after arriving in Beiping that even low-end goods were hard to sell.

Forget making a fortune. He’d be lucky not to lose everything.

Looking at the half-dead people lying around, Caitou was furious. He raised his foot to kick the child closest to him, then abruptly stopped when he realized this was actually his most valuable mid-tier merchandise, the one most likely to earn him some money.

So instead he began cursing.

“Where’s the water? Too lazy even to fetch water now? All you know how to do is lie there waiting to be fed all day?”

“Damn my rotten luck for picking up trash like you lot. All along the road you’ve been eating my food and drinking my water, wasting my grain, and now none of you can even sell!”

“I’m telling you now—if you keep acting half-dead tomorrow and nobody buys you, I’ll sell every last one of you to the coal pits and brick kilns. You’ll work yourselves to death in less than three months.”

“Now look lively!”

“Go fetch water. I’m thirsty!”

Several children barely capable of moving struggled to their feet. Among them was the child who had almost been sold that afternoon. Staggering unsteadily, they carried jars off to fetch water.

“Tch.” Caitou spat on the ground.

“If I’d known the road back would be this difficult, forcing us to take a detour and waste half a month more grain, I would’ve just bought cheaper stock nearby.”

“Damn it. Every one of them crying poor, but secretly eating better than the next. White-flour buns, pork head meat, yellow wine… I’ve barely eaten white-flour buns myself.”

“Serves you right. You deserved to get robbed!”

After venting, Caitou went to inspect his own food supplies.

The next second, a shrill scream echoed from his camp.

“That damned thief! Having white-flour buns and pork head meat still wasn’t enough—he even stole my black-flour buns! All ten of them! That was four days’ worth of rations for me!”

“My buns!!!”