Chapter Fifty Corpse

  Li Gongzi said with a bitter smile: "You can go to Wang Gong's factory and see for yourself. These people, if they sell cheaply, might still be able to survive; if not, they'll just have to wait for death!"

  Zhong Jinwei turned his head to look at the three girls who were shrinking in the corner, and several people nodded with tears in their eyes.

  Zhong Jinwei turned around and said to Gu Baihe and others: "Let's go take a look."

  Three girls who were all relatively slender and beautiful, suddenly suffered a great change, every day suffering from hunger and cold, hovering between life and death, either selling themselves or being sold to this young master Liang. They had hoped to become slaves or servants, at least able to survive, and after the period was over, they could also choose a good family to marry into.

  The result was being taken to a wine house, where they were treated inhumanely and whipped at the slightest resistance. However, this also attracted Zhong Jingwei and his group, which could be considered good luck.

  Among them, there was one who was relatively clever, named Li Si-min. She knew that once Zhong Jin-wei and the others left, those people would definitely vent their anger on them, and by then it would be their death sentence. So she rushed out and fell to the ground at Zhong Jin-wei's feet: "Young master, save us!"

  The other two people also knelt down and begged for help upon seeing this.

  Zhong Jinwei was taken aback by being knelt down for the first time and didn't know how to react, turning his head to look at Gu Bai Chuan.

  Gu Bai Chuan looked at Zhong Jin Wei's expression, seemingly wanting to save someone. Anyway, the person had already been beaten, so there was no need to rescue them anymore. He walked directly in front of Liang Gong Zi and said: "My young master will accumulate good karma for you, hand over their slave contracts."

  A good man doesn't take advantage of someone in front of him. Liang Gongzi nodded, and the house servant who was standing aside, his face swollen from being beaten, took out three sheets of paper from his bosom and walked up to Zhong Jinwei with trepidation, wanting to hand them over to him.

  Gu Baihe took a few steps forward and inserted himself into the straight line of the house guard walking towards Zhong Jinwei, reaching out to grab something first, then looking at him.

  It was unclear whether they were intimidated by the beating or the prestige of the East Factory, but the household servants retreated backward in fear until they reached the wall and could retreat no further.

  Gu Bai Chuan saw that he no longer had the possibility of a sneak attack, so he turned to hand over several deeds of sale to Zhong Jin Wei.

  Zhong Jinwei glanced at it casually and felt a headache from the vertical, unpunctuated traditional Chinese characters on it, just like when he was studying English vocabulary in college.

  He didn't look at it much either, and handed it to the women: "Your sale contract, take it away, and have a good life from now on." Then he prepared to leave.

  "Master, please take us in, we have nowhere else to go." Li Simin begged tearfully.

  This hadn't been considered before, if we're going to take him in, we'll have to ask the wife's opinion. Zhong Jinwei turned around and looked at Aqi.

  Although Ah Qi left home and entered the palace at a young age, she had never seen such a miserable encounter before, and her heart was already filled with sympathy. Seeing Zhong Jinwei looking at her, she knew it was up to her to make a decision.

  "A'qi thought for a moment and said: "Young master, the mansion should need some maids to serve, why not take them in?"

  Zhong Jinwei heard what Qi said and thought it was probably true, so he agreed.

  Zhong Jinwei went out first, followed by Aqi, then Anguiyi, and then the three poor men. Gu Baichuan closely followed behind them, and finally Wang Peng. After seeing that everyone else had left, he put away his knife and glared at those present before leaving himself.

  Originally someone wanted to ask which Dongchang hero it was, but after being glared at like that, they swallowed their words.

  As soon as they went out, the three girls were blown by the cold wind and shivered. Zhong Jinwei frowned upon seeing this, it was indeed very cold with such thin clothes, don't catch a chill. But there's no clothing now, so he looked at Gu Bai Chuan to see if he had any ideas. Through this incident, Gu Bai Chuan gave him a pretty good impression.

  Gu Bai Chuan cupped his hands and said, "Young master, please wait a moment. One thing doesn't need two masters. I see that there are three fox-fur coats hanging inside." Taking the things from the people in the room, Zhong Jin Wei didn't have any mental burden, and smiled as he nodded.

  Gu Bai Chuan quickly took out the clothes and put them on the three girls. Then, he smiled at Zhong Jin Wei and said: "These spoiled brats only know how to bully the weak and fear the strong. If I go in, they won't even dare fart." Everyone laughed.

  Zhong Jinwei thought for a moment and asked An Guiyi: "Where is Wang Gongchang? Is it on the way?"

  An Guiyi replied: "Young master, Wang Gong's factory is located in the southwest corner of the capital, it's a bit far and not on the way."

  The three girls were surprised after hearing this, no wonder An Guiyi had been silent all along, it turned out he was a cuckold.

  "Then trouble An Gong to take them to see the house first, I won't go, if A Qi goes it's fine. If there's anything that needs to be added, A Qi will remember and I'll buy it later."

  With so many outsiders present, Archie's face turned slightly red, but his heart was sweet and he softly said "uh-huh".

  An Guiyi turned around and said to the three girls: "From now on, this Miss Qi will be your mistress, you must listen to her in everything, do you understand?"

  It wasn't until then that Gu Xiangbai and Wang Peng finally understood Archie's true identity.

  No more words were exchanged at the moment, and after going downstairs, Zhong Jinwei made an appointment with An Guiyi to meet again at Donghuamen, then he saw off An Guiyi driving away with four girls.

  Wait until Angui drove away and when he was about to set off himself, only then did he realize that the same transportation problem still needed to be solved.

  It seems that in this era, not knowing how to ride a horse is really inconvenient.

  Fortunately, there was a gentle old horse in the store that Gu Baiqian forcibly borrowed and let Zhong Jinwei ride.

  Then, under the guidance of Gu Baihe, Zhong Jinwei learned and rode horses, gradually mastering the key to riding horses. As long as it wasn't a fast gallop, his horsemanship was passable. The three of them headed in the direction of Wang Gongchang.

  There were few pedestrians on the road and the main road was wide, so it didn't affect horse riding much.

  Zhong Jinwei was so focused on riding a horse for the first time that he didn't pay much attention to the scenery around him.

  The martial law in the capital has been lifted, but occasionally, one can still see the figures of Shuntian House officers, although none of them come to bother the three. Those who can wear a sword and ride a horse in the imperial city are all people with status.

  As they approached Wang Gong's factory, Zhong Jinwei had become somewhat accustomed to riding a horse and was able to devote some of his energy to taking in the scenery along the way.

  At this time, they had already arrived near the poor district of the capital. Although the streets were still relatively spacious, the sanitary conditions were clearly not optimistic, and piles of domestic waste could often be seen at street corners, all sorts of things. Fortunately, it was winter now, and there were no mosquitoes or rats, otherwise, it would have been hard to say what kind of situation would arise.

  Seeing this, Zhong Jinwei also remembered the famous plague at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Some netizens even said that the Ming Dynasty was destroyed by the plague. It seems that there are too many things that need to be changed. This matter needs attention and finding an opportunity to tell Emperor Chongzhen about it.

  Suddenly, in front of them, several yamen runners were leading mules and pulling over a few flat carts, which were covered with mats made of grass. However, the mats couldn't cover everything. As Zhong Jinwei brushed past them, he noticed that many people's feet were exposed from under the mats.

  He immediately realized that this might be a dead refugee. Although he thought he had guessed the truth, he still wanted to confirm it, so he pulled his horse across in front of the second carriage and stopped it.

  He rode up on his horse and asked the man leading the mule: "Excuse me, are those dead refugees in the cart?"

  The man leading the mule looked up at him and sighed: "Does this still need to be asked?"

  "Can you lift up the mat and take a look?"

  "It's better not to look anymore, death is a big deal, at least give them some dignity."

  Not allowed to see, is there any inside story? Zhong Jinwei said: "Have you done something that can't be seen, and you don't dare let us see?"

  That man silently sighed again, shook his head: "Young master wants to see then see, guilty guilty."

  Gu Baihe led the horse closer, slightly bent his waist, and lifted one of the straw mats covering the carriage.

  Zhong Jinwei was stunned, the corpses on the car were mostly old and weak people. What shocked him even more was that all of those corpses were naked, just piled up in the car like that.

  Zhong Jinwei immediately got angry. The clothes of these dead people still need to be stripped, and they can sell for some money. As soon as he opened his mouth, he was about to scold.

  That man saw Zhong Jinwei's reaction and spoke first, his voice tinged with a hint of helplessness: "Young master thinks it was us who stripped these people of their clothes and sent them to their deaths?"

  "Isn't it?"

  "I know you're a kind-hearted person, so I'll tell you the truth. At this time of day, after noon, everyone on this cart is starving to death, and there aren't even many people left. If you had come early in the morning, you would have seen carts carrying corpses several times more than now, and those people would all have frozen to death. So now, as soon as someone dies, the people around them will strip off their clothes to wear, so they won't freeze to death at night. We're not doing anything wrong, sir, can you understand?"

  Zhong Jinwei suddenly realized that he had misunderstood them. In fact, the true nature of those black-hearted people was completely different from these few, and anyone with a bit of discernment should be able to see it.

  Zhong Jin apologized and then asked: "Are you going to drag me out of the city to bury me?"

  "It's freezing cold today, and so many people have died. We can't bury them all, we can only take them away for cremation."

  Zhong Jinwei silently stepped aside, clearing the way.

  One cart after another passed in front of him, and he could still hear someone's sigh: "These are all poor people, just a few days ago they were probably laughing at home, but this disaster has turned them into this state. If the emperor had caught that Yuan Chonghuan earlier, there wouldn't be such a thing, it's really fate!"