Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle-Chapter 872 - 434: Life (Part 1)

Qin Huai was very seriously scrutinizing the child who had fallen to the ground, clutching his stomach, without even the strength to groan.

For some reason, he felt that this child might not be Zhao Cheng'an. Even if the Mayfly liked courting death and experiencing the myriad aspects of life, in the first life, it was just a spirit, not a human. It couldn't act like a human so realistically.

The spirit of the first life couldn't be hidden. Whether it was the curiosity about the human world or the indifference to surrounding creatures, that inherent detachment and vague sense of superiority was recognizable at a glance, especially given that Qin Huai had been in contact with the spirit for so long.

The child on the ground was extremely indifferent, or in other words, extremely lifeless.

He showed no joy at the prospect of meeting a buyer. When the trafficker roughly pried open his mouth to show his teeth to the customer, he did not resist. When kicked to the ground, he showed no resentment, even lying there clutching his stomach was more out of necessity to feign an act than out of pain. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

His eyes were only filled with numbness, the kind of numbness where living or dying seemed irrelevant, simply lying there dazed seemed like the best numbness for a lifetime.

The spirit shouldn't be numb.

After determining that this child was most likely not Zhao Cheng'an, Qin Huai began to observe the others.

The traffickers sold not only children, but also young girls, and even adult women.

Of course, there wasn't just one trafficker outside the city. The traffickers were both male and female, mostly middle-aged, relatively not so thin, always with a flattering smile when facing customers, revealing large yellow or rotten teeth with a grin, instantly changing to a fierce face ready to beat or scold when facing the goods, and while communicating with peers they would smugly share their expertise in buying and selling people.

For instance, where the goods were cheap enough that you didn't even need to pay, just giving them something to eat would have them willingly follow. Cheapness came with risk; these places often suffered droughts so severe that even grass roots and tree bark were eaten, and cases of cannibalism had begun. Going there meant taking your life in your hands, but returning full-handed would mean a big profit, after all, it was a costless deal.

Of course, cheap goods also meant no good goods. Such places were impossible to get the most valuable twelve or thirteen-year-old, beautiful, fresh virgins without spending money—these good commodities had long been sold out years ago, you could only pick up adolescent boys or women willing to sell themselves for a bite to eat.

As for adult men, traffickers didn't dare take them, what if they fought back and seized control? The rest were not worth looking at; they would die easily during the journey, or be unsellable and lose money upon arrival, and these savvy people wouldn't engage in such unprofitable business.

Some traffickers liked to do this cost-free business, naturally, there were also those who specialized in high-end goods.

More were a mix of taking whatever came their way. These days, the world was unsound, and people were cheaper than livestock, taking whatever they could, these small traffickers couldn't compare with those large traders, and they were content with making some earnings amid the grim market.

Qin Huai never imagined he would one day hear a group of traffickers complaining about the poor market, about the downturn in business.

When there were no buyers, traffickers gathered together to chat extensively about business insights, mainly to boast.

Who had their virgin girl sold for a high price to someone in an alley, whose decent-looking boy was taken by an old master with special tastes, what sort of goods so-and-so master liked, what kind of people a certain mansion recently wanted to buy, talking spittingly, without any worry about their goods running away.

They indeed didn't need to worry.

The shared tactic among these traffickers was not to let the goods eat to their fill, nor starve them to death, keeping them in a half-dead state, lying as opposed to even sitting to gasp. These goods had mostly come across provinces with them, some even across several provinces, and it was impossible to take public transportation to save costs, relying solely on walking.

Those who survived to be sold here were usually in good physical shape, those unfit or unable to endure had long perished along the way. As these traffickers would say, this was also a way to screen the quality of goods.

They needed a reputation for their business too. If they sold customers sickly goods that died after a few days of care, the customers surely would cause trouble. Though this screening method had a high attrition rate, it was effective.

Of course, high-end goods couldn't use this screening method; high-end goods were sold by weight. That scale not far away was specifically for weighing high-end goods, priced per pound, those too light at only four or five dozen pounds the customers didn't want, finding them too hard to maintain.

Thus, even within these barely breathing goods, there were categorized into hierarchies. Low-end goods were lucky to get two ounces of black beans a day, let alone a bun. Mid-tier goods like that child rolling on the ground had buns and sweet potatoes, these mixed grains to eat, half-filling to look more spirited for sale.

High-end goods had very good food, millet mixed with grains cooked into porridge, with cabbage, and slightly generous traffickers might even buy leftovers from the city to mix into the porridge. What others could eat was cold, hard, or foul, only they could have a taste of something warm.

The place where traffickers gathered to chat was right beside the pot cooking porridge, chatting while keeping an eye on the pot, the barely lively beings lying on the ground could only watch from afar, too scared to approach lest they be beaten as thieves.