Zhang Yuanyi and his master went all the way south. The purpose of their trip was to pass through Yingchuan County again, go straight down to Huawukou, and take a boat to Longwan Island.

Longwan Island is located in the endless sea in the south, Nanga Island, the holy land of the Demon Cult, and Linglan Island, the uninhabited land in the north, are known as the "Three Secret Realms".

Among them, Longwan Island is especially famous for its beautiful scenery and pleasant scenery; Linglan Island is famous for being desolate and uninhabited, with snow falling all year round; as for Nanga Island, it is an ordinary island in the first place, entirely because of the "Holy Land of Demon Cult". This word is known to everyone.

After leaving the jurisdiction of Cangwu County, there was another section of mountain road to walk on the way to Yingchuan County. This time Zhang Yuan followed Zhang Daoling closely and never ran away blindly.

Zhang Yuanyi was holding a book in his hand, it was the "Hundred Works of Art", and he was reading it while walking. It was not entirely correct to say that he was reading. Because he was afraid of falling while walking, he picked up the book and took a look or two after walking two steps. , then closed the book and began to recall the content, and then picked it up and took a quick look. The two abilities that every reader most hopes to obtain are one is to read ten lines at a time, and the other is to have a photographic memory. Zhang Yuanyi has both of these abilities.

In fact, Zhang Yuanyi is not gifted, but he has always been serious about doing things and likes to do things with heart. As long as it is something he treats with heart, he can often learn it quickly, such as cooking, carpentry, and even textiles. The most fearful thing about anything is It means being attentive, because when you are attentive, there is nothing Zhang Yuanyi can’t learn. Of course, apart from practicing, Zhang Yuanyi still doesn’t have a clue.

As for Zhang Yuanyi not paying attention to anything, maybe he really didn't. In the early years, he heard Brother Dayong pay attention to what his guests said and learned a lot of words and idioms. He made up his mind to take everything seriously.

But such disadvantages are not small. This causes him to think about so many things in a day. There are so many things, all kinds of things. If a person has everything on his mind, how tiring it is. I guess ordinary people He was already exhausted both mentally and physically and was exhausted. Even if Zhang Yuan was young and energetic, he could still maintain vitality. But what happened later? Who can always be full of vitality and never get tired. So now we learn quickly and learn well. Is it really good? No one knows.

Zhang Yuanyi took one last look at "Baigong Tu" and closed the book to recall the content. This time he simply went through it from beginning to end, starting from the first page of the book. After a stick of incense had passed, he confirmed that he had I really remembered this book after reading it completely.

After he finished reading the book, he understood the reason why Zhang Daoling lent him the book to read. When he passed by Xueyue Tower, he asked his master what Xueyue Tower was. The master didn't answer clearly, but just gave a perfunctory answer. , he continued to ask questions and was rewarded with a chestnut. He didn't understand it at the time, but now he understands.

"Baigong Tu" mainly describes detailed illustrations and texts of some professions, and the last few pages happen to be about brothel professions. In fact, Zhang Yuanyi thought about it on his own and probably guessed it. This was mainly based on what the old beggar said before. I thought in this direction in the sentence "He is too poor to go to Xueyue Tower, so he came to deceive you little girls." Now that I have read "Baigong Tu", it is just a hypothesis in my heart that has been verified.

But when he finished reading it, he didn't feel as happy as knowing something. Instead, he had mixed feelings in his heart.

The girl who entered the brothel

The women all had no choice but to do so, either because their families were poor, or because they were abducted, or because they had no hope in life. Most of them were women from good families before starting their careers, and they were already resistant to opening the door to receive guests.

The madam usually does ideological work first, and if this method really doesn't work, she starts to use physical torture to force her. There are many methods of cruelty. In addition to the more common rape, rape, etc., the most vicious method is

There are mainly two types: one is the sacrificial whip, which is a whip made of leather with a steel needle inside, showing a slight edge. The woman being sacrificed is stripped of her clothes, her hands are tied behind her back, hung from a beam, and then beaten hard with the whip.

The second is "beating the cat but not the body". For a woman who is unwilling to receive guests, tie her hands behind her back, gag her mouth and tongue, then put the civet cat in her trousers, tighten the trouser legs, and beat the civet cat vigorously. The civet cat will eat it when it feels pain.

The woman scratched and bit her skin randomly, causing her to feel severe pain.

In addition to being physically harmed by the madam, the clients will often insult the women. Some clients do not treat them as human beings at all. In order to satisfy their own perverted pleasure, they will do anything and sometimes even cause death, just casually.

They paid a few small sums of money and buried the person hastily. There was no other way. They had always been in a low status and their lives were worthless. Even the yamen might not be able to deal with this matter. There were three levels of people, and they were recognized as the most despicable ones.

wait.

There are only a few fates in the end, either becoming a madam and serving in a brothel all his life; or the better-off person is sent to a temple to accompany the ancient Buddha of Qingdeng, and ends his life; or he is abandoned by others after his old age and beauty fades, and becomes a

The old beggar who wanders the streets with no place to stay and is hated by everyone; the one with the best life is the brothel girl who is lucky enough to redeem herself. One way is to redeem herself with the wages she earns, but the redemption requires too much silver.

It is difficult for an ordinary woman to get together in her lifetime. The other option is to have a loved one pay for her to redeem her body and take her away from this glamorous place. But is being redeemed really happy? Most of the time it is just the beginning of another torturous life.

That’s all, there’s no such thing as smooth sailing after escaping from the sea of ​​suffering. The hardships involved are not something that outsiders can appreciate.

Zhang Yuan breathed a long sigh of relief, and then thought of the beautiful woman in Xueyuelou with a bright smile, wearing a red dress, with her hair loose, waving a silk scarf and leaning on the railing to attract customers, and thought about what happened behind this smile?

How much bitterness and suffering are hidden? How many joys and sorrows do we have to go through?

When he thought of this, he could only lament that he was so lucky.

He breathed another sigh of relief, regained his composure, ran forward, handed the book to Zhang Daoling with a smile, and said, "Master, I have finished reading."

"Oh?" Zhang Daoling was slightly surprised and said: "You kid is quite fast at reading, but don't just swallow it all and understand it half-understood."

Zhang Yuanyi smiled again and said, "No, I read the book seriously and wrote it all down."

Zhang Daoling nodded, took out another book, and said, "Since you read so quickly and like reading so much, that's good. I'll give you another book. Every time you finish reading, you can ask the master to exchange it for a new one."

If you don’t know how, come and ask me. There are a lot of books here, master. It’s up to you how much you can read along the way. But one thing I have to remind you is that you can’t slack off when practicing swordsmanship and martial arts.”

Zhang Yuan nodded, took the book, and began to think about the title of the book "Bu Tian Ge". "Master, is this book teaching me singing?"

Zhang Daoling walked in front and said: "This book is about astronomy, about the twenty-eight stars in the sky. It is just written in the form of poetry."

When it comes to poetry, Zhang Yuanyi became interested. His earliest interest in reading was the "Book of Songs" from Brother Dayong. Although he had long memorized the contents of the book, Zhang Yuanyi would still take out the book from time to time.

I read this book because I never get tired of reading it.

But when Zhang Yuanyi just read the first chapter of "Bu Tiange", "Ziwei Palace", he was completely dumbfounded. This thing is really not something that ordinary people can understand. Zhang Yuanyi frowned and thought hard.

I read a page and asked a lot of questions along the way. Zhang Daoling was also very patient and answered the questions one by one.

It took Zhang Yuanyi only half a month to finish reading such a book.

They had been on the road for less than half a month. In addition, they had been on the road for more than a month when they left the town. It had been a month and a half since they left the town.

That night, while the two of them were still on their way, it suddenly started to rain. The heavy rain came suddenly, like tiny needles falling to the ground with a huge force. Fortunately, both of them had prepared umbrellas and they would not be drowned, but the strong wind howled.

, the heavy rain was blowing obliquely, and even holding an umbrella could not withstand all the splashing rain. Moreover, because the two wanted to save money, they bought two cheap umbrellas. Now the small broken umbrellas were crumbling in the strong wind, making an overwhelmed sound.

There was a squeaking sound, as if it was about to break in the next second, and the heavy rain made the entire mountain road muddy, making it even more difficult to walk.

"Master, let's find a place to take shelter from the rain. We can't go on like this. The rain is too heavy." Zhang Yuan held an umbrella with both hands and shouted loudly.

Even his voice was quickly dispersed by the heavy rain and disappeared without a trace in the rain. Fortunately, Zhang Daoling still heard it.

The sky was getting darker and darker, and occasionally thunder flashed and roared, which looked extremely scary.

After walking for who knows how long, they still couldn't find a place to take shelter from the rain. Moreover, it was so dark that they couldn't see the road a few feet ahead. Just when Zhang Yuan was about to despair, a bolt of lightning struck down, like

A sharp sword cut through the sky. The shining arc ran down from the clouds to the edge of the sky, illuminating the entire world.

Taking this opportunity, Zhang Yuanyi quickly looked around the environment. He seemed to see a bright light in front of him in the blur. He opened his eyes and looked carefully. It was a house!

Zhang Yuanyi was so excited that he shouted loudly: "Master, let's go quickly. There is a house in front of us. Let's go see if we can get out of the rain!"

As he spoke, he quickened his pace and walked forward, holding an umbrella. He looked back at the master from time to time, urging him to hurry up. Zhang Daoling kept agreeing and followed.

When the two of them got closer, they saw a small house. The small house was illuminated by candlelight, and it was like a beacon in the dark night, guiding the pedestrians on their way.

Zhang Yuanyi was very happy and trotted all the way to the small house, while Zhang Daoling stood there with an umbrella, counting with his fingers, with a complicated look in his eyes.
Chapter completed!