Don't be tempted, sir

Qizhu woke up at noon. I heard that she had rescued many girls yesterday, so it would be good to comfort them at noon. Her official uniform was too dirty to wear, so she wore a coarse cloth dress today.

An officer shouted outside the tent, "It's time to eat."

Everyone went out to get food one after another. Qizhu hadn't eaten yet, so she lined up with them. Everyone thought she was one of the people who were rescued.

A woman in green cloth asked the officer, "Sir, when can we go find our families?"

The officer was a little impatient and said, "The superiors will let you go if they give the order."

Another questioned, "Why are you watching over us? We are not pirates."

"Yes! Why can't we leave the tent at will? Why do we have to be watched when we go out to relieve ourselves?"

As more and more people questioned them, the officer got angry and shouted, "You guys! You are not allowed to eat anymore." He snatched their bowls and roughly dragged them back to the tent. Qizhu felt something was wrong and didn't say anything.

After finishing the meal quickly, they mixed in and returned to the tent. Qizhu found a group of people to sit together and asked, "Which village are you from?"

"I am from Tongfu Village", "I am from Zhangjia Village", "She and I are from Chengjia Village"

Qizhu asked again, "How did you get caught by the pirates?"

A woman from Tongfu Village recalled, "That day the sea level rose and washed away Tongfu Village. It's not like this has happened before, but this was the first time the pirates came so quickly."

The people from Zhangjia Village continued, "Our village is next to Tongfu Village, and the pirates came the fastest! They kicked open the houses of girls as if they knew the place well. I was the first batch to be taken to the ship, and the pirates didn't do anything to us, they just locked us up and didn't give us food or water."

Chengjiacun said, "I was hiding in the grain pile and heard someone talking about the list!"

Another skinny and young girl said, "They never gave us food. I was so hungry that I couldn't sleep that night. I saw a man walking in front of the pirates saying that if we starved to death, we wouldn't be able to sell us for money. The next day we had some clear rice bran porridge."

Qizhu asked, "Can you see clearly whether that man is the pirate leader or someone else?"

The thin woman was sure, "That's not the pirate leader! I'm sure of that, but I can't see who it is against the backlight."

Qizhu asked, "Tell me, why have they arrested us for more than half a month and still haven't started the ship to sell us?"

“I don’t know.” Several women shook their heads.

A charming woman came over and said, "I know why they didn't reach an agreement."

Qizhu noticed that she was not like the other girls in the village. "Girl, who are you?"

The charming woman replied, "I'm from Xianglou. We had a disagreement on the price of the batch we sold earlier, so we haven't sold you any yet."

Qizhu asked politely, "Miss, how did you know that?"

"I didn't want to stay in the crowded cabin, so I used some tricks to get out of the main pavilion on the second floor and serve the pirate leader in the main pavilion. Didn't you notice that those pretty girls were gone?"

The other women looked around and said, "Ah! Really! The most beautiful ones in our village are gone!"

Qizhu quickly signaled them to keep their voices down, as the others had already noticed! "They rarely go out to work in the fields, and we are not very familiar with them. We were too confused at the time and didn't notice."

The enchanting woman smiled charmingly at Qizhu and said, "You are good at protecting yourself. You are so outstanding in appearance, but you can stay."

Qizhu touched her face awkwardly and smiled to change the subject: "Do you know where they were trafficked to?"

“I don’t know, the shipping is well developed.”

"Come out! The master wants to question you!" The officer with a fierce face just now spoke

Everyone went out together, Qizhu stood in the middle of the crowd with her face smeared with mud. The prince changed into a black and ink-colored robe, with an upright posture and bright eyes like the moon in his arms. Many women whispered, "It's him, so handsome!" Qizhu looked at him and nodded in agreement, "He is indeed handsome!"

The prince immediately spotted the group of people wearing beads that looked like a cat in the crowd, and said with a smile, "Because you are now witnesses, I am staying here."

After that, he whispered a few words to Magistrate Liu, who said, "Your Excellency needs to question a few women. I hope you will cooperate."

Afterwards, the prince brought out a few people, including the charming woman. Not long after, they came back. A group of people surrounded them and asked curiously, "What did the adult ask?" and "When will he let us go?"

The charming woman walked around the crowd and came to Qizhu and whispered, "This is what he gave you."

Qizhu turned around and looked at the note, which had two words written on it: "Be careful."

Qizhu did not drink water or eat as instructed. Sure enough, in the middle of the night, someone came into the tent and turned over the faces of the people one by one. Qizhu felt that she was being lifted up, and someone was muttering, "This girl is really pretty, she will definitely sell for a good price."

"Yes! It's a pity that we can't take them all away."

Then they were put on a cart and covered with straw. Qizhu watched the route being transported all the way to the seaside, where several small boats were waiting. More than a dozen unconscious girls were transferred to the boats, which kept rowing until everyone woke up one after another. Some were scared and screamed, and some wanted to jump off the boat, but they were all beaten and curled up on the boats.

In the morning, the man in officer uniform with a fierce look on his face shouted loudly, "Run! Don't even think about it! You will be caught no matter where you run!"

Someone asked, "You are not officers and soldiers!"

Another wretched-looking man laughed perversely, "We are soldiers, we are here to rescue you, hahahaha."

Qizhu felt sick and wanted to vomit. Then she saw the charming woman on the other boat. Neither of them said anything. The boat rowed to a small island. The so-called officers and soldiers drove everyone to the island. After a long walk, they arrived at the other side of the island, where a large ship was docked.

They followed him onto the boat and stood on the deck. The man with only one eye faced the vicious man and said angrily, "Didn't you say there were more than forty? Don't you know how to count, or are you bullying me, who has one eye?"

The officer stepped forward and said politely, "Sea King, there were originally more than 40 of them, but something went wrong. However, this batch is just as good as the last batch, each of them is a top-notch water spirit."

"Humph, beauty is the basis! You said you would come last night, but you only came now. I, One-Eye, am not patient. These dozen people are here to deal with us. I'll cut the price in half."

"Sea King, please don't make things difficult for us. It's not easy to bring these people here."

"Stop talking nonsense, someone get them off the boat!"

A group of pirates came forward to drive away the officers and soldiers. The officers and soldiers were outnumbered and had to disembark. The sea king's men threw a bag of silver off the ship. The officers and soldiers picked it up and opened it, cursing, "Who are you going to give these three melons and two dates to?"

"It's already very kind of me to give it to you," he turned and left.