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Chapter 17 A fish at the bottom of the pot

Jǐn dǐ yóu yú In desperate straits. Life threatening situation. Stare into the abyss

"Little master, please stay in the manor and don't cause more headache for the General," YuQin pleaded with Murong LiWang when she saw her trying to leave the manor with HeiYing and the other shadow bodyguards.

"YuQin jiejie, i want to see how I can help the people, I cannot rest easy when I know how the others are suffering," the masked child replied. "I can smell sickness and death around."

"The people needs doctors, not children to see them. We brought many medical herbs, why don't you help in brewing the medicine and we can bring them to the clinic later on?"

HeiYing did mental thumbs-up at the back of his young master to YuQin. He was racking his head on how to keep this ball of energy within the safety of the General's new residences walls and YuQin had just casually given him a solution.

They all knew how sheltered Murong LiWang was, even though he was very mischievous and out running and spying at people houses, HeiYing had made sure all that the young master saw was age appropriate. And so far, HeiYing had managed to keep this child, his young master, from knowing human extend of vices and evil deeds.

For centuries from the founding of Xue kingdom, the empire had seen decades of peace but poverty was evident. Earlier decades, when the newest Xue emperor had just taken over the throne, there were problems around the empire that needed assistance from the capital.

Certain factions of the government body still largely made of the previous empire of tribal clans. These clans had their vested interests and old petty disputes in certain lands, which hinder the certain government acts.

One of such was the sending aid. Back in the years before Murong LiWang was born, about 12 years ago, there was a certain remote town, named Willow Brook Town, that was no longer existed. Willow Brook Town was far south from the capital experienced and have faced dreadful two years famine.

Due to its location, Willow Brook Town was never considered as a strategic town, and the people who lived in that area still lived with tribal laws.

The population of Willow Brook Town decreased, with many youths seeking fortune in larger towns and cities. Officials posted in the town had slacked off and hardly worked their duties. Thus, with all the factors, when famine hit down south, news of the people's suffering in the far south was slow to arrive at the new emperor's notice.

It had reached dire situations of prolonged neglect that the towns people escaped the town to seek refuge elsewhere, leaving those unable to leave to find the means to survive. It had started from a poor village near the Willow Brook Town, that some of the villagers agreed then they had resorted cannibalism, just so that they could survive.

At first, these villagers would kill victims who were close to dying of starvation and carve their flesh for consumption. Then to share the guilt and to justify their methods of survival, the cannibals slowly influenced others to join their gang to.

They did this by convincing these poor unfortunate people that they were already discarded by the government and were pushed into this in order to survive. As the dying population had trickled down, the practice cannibalism increased. The hungry people slowly took the words of the cannibals that this was a dog eat dog society and it was only rightful and not wasteful since the victims were about to die anyways.

From dying people, it further escalated when these depraved people became sick in their minds, wanting tender meat, instead of leathery dying flesh. With poisoned minds, they started to look and prey at young children, salivating by looking at the young, tender, and soft flesh.

Later on witnesses said neighbors traded their children so they would not have to cook their own sons and daughters. They started with the youngest in the families, because the little ones knew nothing and would not be afraid.

When the Emperor finally heard that the assistance his officials had sent did not reach the victims, the emperor took the opportunity to change the old and lazy officials. After ascertaining the famine situation down south, the new young emperor sent officials and army to the area. However, when the officials reached the Willow Brook Town to aid and investigate, they found out the gruesome methods of survival. These young officials and soldiers faced a moral dilemma to whether to save or to kill the residents as murderers.

It had became a blur and the officials worked with the soldiers to kill hose suspected as cannibals and mostly only saved and took the small ones. One of them was HeiYing.

A mini introduction of our big brother HeiYing. He’s always keeping a watch out for our small FL. Our young FL mentality is about the current Murong LiWang.

Thank you for reading. Please give ratings.

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