Yan Qing smiled, and put her hand on his shoulder. Although she knew nothing about the barrier city, she still pretended to be serious. She sighed and said, "It's not easy to be pregnant until July." The young man was probably too happy. He panted, and a strange enthusiasm appeared in his eyes. He said, "Yes, my wife is also crazy with joy."
Yan Qing sighed and said, "The city lord has really taken great pains to protect our city."
The young man nodded, his eyes full of enthusiasm: "Isn't it true? There are fewer and fewer children in the barrier city. The city lord is very sad to see this. Now it has come to the point where he will reward a hundred taels of gold for every birth. However, gold is not the key. The most important thing is the holy water."
When he talked about holy water, the enthusiasm in his eyes became even weirder. "If the baby is born alive, my wife and I can both get a bottle of holy water."
Yan Qing wisely did not ask about the topic of holy water, but there was no need to think about this word, it was probably the core reason why the Barrier City was so strange.
The young man walked back and forth, biting his fist from time to time, looking anxious and expectant, and nervously looking inside the house. After half a day, there was still no sound of a baby crying inside the house, and the young man's expression gradually changed from expectation to panic.
Granny Guan quickly pushed the door open and came out. Her hands were covered in blood, and there were spots of blood on her black robe as well, but they were hidden in the dark color and others could not see them clearly.
The young man strode forward and said, "Grandma Guan, how is it?"
Granny Guan glanced at him and said indifferently, "Dead fetus."
The young man was so anxious that he felt like someone was choking him by the neck. He raised his voice and said, "Dead fetus? How could it be a dead fetus? It's already seven months. It's not like one or two months like before. How could it be a dead fetus?"
Granny Guan waved her hand, and immediately two guards from the Su residence came up and took the man away.
Granny Guan said, "I have already taken away the dead fetus, and your daughter-in-law's life has been saved. You can go in and take care of her."
The young man still couldn't believe it. He rushed over and grabbed Grandma Guan's sleeve, his eyes red with anxiety: "No, no, no, how could it be a stillbirth! It's already seven months! Grandma! Grandma, there must be something wrong in the meantime!"
Granny Guan was annoyed with him and kicked him away. She warned him impatiently, "If I say it's a dead fetus, it's a dead fetus! Why would I lie to you? If I say a live fetus is a dead fetus, the city lord will be the first to kill me! Get lost, I have a lot of things to do with Madam Su!"
After she finished speaking, she left the place followed by a group of Su Mansion guards.
The man was crying bitterly in the yard, probably immersed in the sorrow of losing his "child". He knelt on the ground, letting the rain hit his face.
The sky and the earth were dark, and Yan Qing followed Granny Guan and left. But after a while, he took a detour, ran to the wall of his backyard, and climbed up to see what was happening behind.
After the delivery, the room was filled with the smell of blood. The young man had cried enough, so he went in numbly, opened the window, pulled aside the door curtain, and brought in a lot of water to wipe the body of his unconscious wife.
It was obvious that the movements were extremely skillful. The young man's window was high, so Yan Qing could only see an outline and vaguely hear the conversation between the wife and her husband after she woke up.
"Child, where is our child?" the woman asked anxiously and excitedly as soon as she woke up.
Yan Qing frowned when he heard the voice.
There was no "relief" or "expectation" that a mother normally had in her tone; instead, her voice was rapid and fanatical, and excited to the point of being a little weird.
The young man was numb: "I went to the Su Mansion to invite Granny Guan. Stillbirth, this is another stillbirth?"
The woman suddenly screamed, "Dead fetus? How could it be a dead fetus? I felt him kicking my stomach! It must be alive." She suddenly changed her tone and asked in a low voice, "You didn't come in when I gave birth?"
The young man was annoyed by her noise and shouted angrily: "How could I come in when you are giving birth! Guan Ruchun would never let me in!"
The woman was furious: "Okay, I know it now. It must be that bitch Guan Ruchun who took our child away and exchanged it for holy water. How could you not come in—" The woman was so angry that she raised her hand and slapped the man in the face: "I worked hard to be pregnant for seven months, and now the benefits are all taken by others! You idiot! Idiot!"
The young man was no pushover either. He stretched out his hand and grabbed the woman's hair, angrily scolding, "You stinky old woman, it's obviously your fault that you're pregnant, and you blame me?"
The woman was already extremely emotional after giving birth, and now when he grabbed her hair, she let out a scream of pain.
The young man was stunned and immediately let go and went over, "Wife, are you okay? How are you?" The woman slapped him in the face mercilessly, "Go and make some medicine for me. If anything happens to me, you will be buried with me."
The young man was so scared that he didn't even dare to raise his voice. He tried to comfort her gently, "Okay, okay, I'll go make some medicine for you right now. Don't be angry. Being angry is not good for your health. The stillbirth is okay. We'll have another chance later."
The woman was full of hatred: "You must keep a close eye on Guan Ruchun from now on! If Guan Ruchun comes into the City Lord's Mansion, it must be a trick!"
The young man agreed with a dusty face: "Okay."
Yan Qing sat on the wall, listening to all this expressionlessly, and then looked at the blue rain on the sky of the barrier city, as if he saw a crazy and weird corner of this bloody and evil city. He originally thought that the women in the barrier city had a miserable identity, being locked in the house and forced to survive. The women who disappeared in the barrier city before were probably also locked up and took this path. He also wanted to save the young man's wife and ask some questions. Unexpectedly, all this was far more complicated and more crazy than he imagined.
The father is not the father, the mother is not the mother... The only ones who are truly sacrificed are those lives that have not even taken shape in the mother's womb.
Yan Qing jumped down from the wall and came to a market with his memory of the barrier city. Markets are often the place where all kinds of gossip spread. Yan Qing didn't dare to use magic in the barrier city, so he just took some dirt and some things to disguise himself, became a beggar with dishevelled hair and a dirty face, and blended in. Beggars' faces are always unclear, so no one can tell that he is an outsider. Yan Qing held a bowl and a dark steamed bun, squatting next to a table of people.
What the people at that table are talking about now is what happened to the young man on the river bank before.
"Did Liu Laoer's wife really give birth to a live baby this time? Doesn't that mean he's rich?"
"No, he's dead. I guess when his wife wakes up, he'll have another tooth knocked out."
"He deserves it. I saw how smug he was before."
"It would be great if the child could be snatched from outside like the girl."
"What are you thinking about? Remember the last time the Li family kid got the order to leave the city, he did this thing, secretly brought back a one-month-old baby from outside, saying it was his own child, and then the child was strangled to death by the people in the City Lord's Mansion."
"Alas, this road really doesn't work."
Yan Qing chewed the steamed bun slowly, listening to the animated conversation of this group of "Zhangcheng people". Their words revealed a deep-seated indifference to life, as well as a mysterious arrogance as a "Zhangcheng person".
"You said the city lord is? How did you know that the child was not? born in our area?"
"The city lord has great magical powers, so of course he can tell at a glance. Which baby born in the Barrier City doesn't need a maid from the clan mansion to deliver it?"
Yan Qing finished eating the steamed bun and suddenly interrupted, saying strangely: "Tell me, is it possible that this is clearly a living fetus, but the people from the clan residence insisted on saying it was a dead fetus, and then they hid the child and secretly exchanged for holy water."
In fact, Yan Qing had two doubts about what happened before. One was why Granny Guan was clean except for the blood on her hands and clothes after she came out; the other was that a living baby would cry and move and was quite large, so it was impossible for it to be brought out without leaving any trace, but that woman was so sure.
When the people around the teahouse saw that the person who spoke was a beggar, they immediately threw a teapot at him and said, "Where did you come from, you stinky beggar! Get away from me, don't dirty my eyes!"
Yan Qing cursed: "How can you call it dirty eyes? Just don't look at me."
"Go! Go! Go!"
As soon as it rained, what floated to the surface seemed to be not only the blood and dirt, but also the brutality in the bones of the people of Zhancheng.
But after Yan Qing was driven away, they all looked at each other and started discussing in a low voice the question that Yan Qing had just raised.
"Don't mention it. That beggar's worry is not unreasonable."
"The clan mansion has a pure bottle that can be used to hold a dead fetus. Do you think it can also hold a live fetus? After all, the pure bottle belongs to the city lord's mansion, and all things of the immortals have great magical powers."
"… No? I guess."
Clan residence, midwife, clean bottle, holy water.
Yan Qing was still for a while, squatted on the edge of the river bank to wash the dirt off his face, then wandered around the barrier city with an umbrella. He asked around and found out the location of the clan mansion. The clan mansion was located in the center of the barrier city, but hidden in a deep alley.
There is a huge mansion here, and it is always crowded.
People lined up in front of the door, standing densely along the bluestone alley.
Yan Qing, holding an umbrella, became the odd one out here, but he was a stranger, so he was an odd one out.
The people in the queue are all men. The women must be "sick".
Coincidentally, the man standing in front of Yan Qing today was actually the one who sold him aphrodisiac drugs yesterday.
"Brother, what a coincidence, we meet again." Yan Qing put her fingers on his shoulders.
The man in front was still cursing at someone: "Two outsiders came yesterday, both invited by Madam Su. I would say these outsiders are trouble. I really don't know why Su Qu likes them!"
When he heard Yan Qing's voice, he turned around.
Young man: “…”
Yan Qing was puzzled: "What were you talking about just now? Madam Su, outsiders?"
Men only dare to talk big to Mrs. Su.
In the barrier city, Su Qu was all-powerful and well-known for protecting his own shortcomings. He swallowed his saliva and said evasively, "Nothing? What are you doing here?"
Yan Qing said: "Buy medicine for Madam Su."
The man dared not say anything.
Yan Qing said, "What about you? Is your wife pregnant again? Or, are you here to get some aphrodisiac?" His half-joking, half-tentative words obviously did not arouse the man's suspicion.
The man rolled his eyes at him and said, "Go away with your aphrodisiac. My wife gave birth to a one-month-old stillborn baby three days ago, and I'm here to get her some medicine."
Yan Qing chuckled: "You guys in the City of Damage are really weird. How can you consider a fetus stillborn after one month?"
After one month, the baby probably hasn’t taken shape in the belly yet, not even a fetus... What on earth is Zhan Cheng doing
Far from being enraged, the man became complacent: "This shows that the blood of you people outside the city is dirty."
Yan Qing pretended to be angry and said, "What do you mean?"
The man said: "That's what I mean. The children born in our Barrier City in the past few years have spiritual roots from birth and can be sent to the upper realm..." The man in front of him held him back, looking at Yan Qing with a wary and dangerous look, and stopped the man from speaking without restraint.