readytorunbook Chapter 489 The Right People Are All Fake
Chapter 489 The Right People Are All Fake
"According to their accounts, Cao Li wouldn't let all of them out to commit fraud. He would only let ten people out each day, and they would take turns going out. If they didn't, they would be locked up. If the sisters who went out couldn't get the silver back, they would be beaten and locked up in a water dungeon without food. Chongfeng visited the dungeon, and although there was no one there now, the smell inside was very strong and extremely unpleasant. Even if you didn't die from being locked up in that water for a day, the filth inside would suffocate you to death."
"According to what they said, there should be ten women outside. Furthermore, today is the day of the transaction. Chongfeng said he wants to stake out the area and catch the underlings who are trading with Cao Li. Someone is needed to oversee the situation, so Chongfeng asked me to bring back a few healthy women with minimal injuries to report to the Empress."
"I heard that Lord Dou dug out more than a dozen corpses. This Cao Li is really despicable. Logically speaking, the punishment of flaying should have been abolished long ago, but this man is guilty of heinous crimes. He should be punished by flaying. Only then can we comfort the women he killed and the people he harmed." Xie Qingzhi said with gritted teeth, wishing he could go forward and execute Cao Li himself.
Xie Qingzhi only then remembered the women he had brought back. "Don't worry, you are all completely safe now. If you have any grievances, tell the Empress and she will naturally take care of you. If the Empress hadn't interrogated Cao Li and discovered your existence, you would not have been rescued. You can rest assured that the beast who harmed you has been apprehended by the Empress and the Emperor."
Xie Qingzhi thought for a moment before adding something to the emperor's request.
It doesn't seem good to only praise the Queen's achievements, after all, there is also the Emperor.
The queen's reputation had long spread everywhere, especially among some women in the capital. Although they had never seen the queen, they had heard of her deeds, especially that the queen had helped many women escape from suffering. Even some women who were bullied by their parents, the queen helped them and rescued them.
The frightened eyes of several people fell on Gu Jianchu cautiously, looking him up and down, as if to confirm his identity.
Seeing Gu Jianchu dressed in luxurious clothes and wearing a phoenix crown, their original suspicions were confirmed and they were sure that the person in front of them was the queen.
However, some women were too timid to move forward.
After all, I have been through so many things, and it is hard to believe that I was suddenly rescued.
I'm afraid it's just another scam.
One of the girls, a bold one, patted her sister's hand in a gesture of comfort, then stepped forward and knelt. "Your Majesty, please help me. It was Cao Li who lured and deceived me. He locked me up in his mansion and fed me so-called obedient drugs, just to make me obey his orders. He lured the wealthy businessmen and officials in the capital and defrauded them of their money. Your Majesty, many of us sisters were lured here by Cao Li. Please help me."
"I will take care of it for you. Please stand up first and tell us how you were abducted." Gu Jianchu's tone was indescribably gentle, which made people feel relaxed.
The red-dressed girl who stood up to speak was relatively bold. After hearing Gu Jianchu's gentle tone, she nodded and said, "Yes, I am a girl from Zuihonglou. Three years ago, my parents sold me there in exchange for a gift for my brother to marry. I'm not the prettiest girl in the house, but I'm not particularly ordinary either. Since entering Zuihonglou, my mother has arranged for me to learn the arts of music, chess, calligraphy, and painting so that I can serve the dignitaries. I studied for half a year before being sent out to entertain guests."
"Once you entered a place like that, your life seemed to have come to an end. There was no other possibility. My life used to be quite peaceful, day by day, until six months ago, when Cao Li came to Zuihonglou and asked me to come. That's when my nightmare began."
"He came to Zuihonglou for a month straight, and every time he came, he asked for me. He was handsome, and his gestures were gentle and refined, like a scholar. And he wasn't like other men who saw me just to vent. He only touched me four times in that month. The rest of the time we talked about music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, and occasionally went out for tea. Every time he came, he would bring me some gifts, sometimes rouge and powder, sometimes cakes. His actions made me mistakenly believe that I had found love."
"That's how it was. He asked me out for an outing, saying Huancui Mountain was extremely beautiful and that we could see the Sun Shining on Golden Mountain in the afternoon. A girl immersed in love didn't want to see the Sun Shining on Golden Mountain, but to be with her beloved. So I told my mother that I wanted to go to Huancui Mountain with Cao Li. Cao Li gave my mother money, so naturally my mother wouldn't stop me from going. So that day Cao Li came to pick me up, and I followed him. We really went to Huancui Mountain, and we saw the Sun Shining on Golden Mountain. There, Cao Li told me that he would redeem me, and we could be together forever."
"The funny thing is, I thought I'd really met a good person, and I began to hope he'd redeem me. But after we came down from Rizhao Jinshan, Cao Li gave me some water he brought. I had a splitting headache after drinking it, and soon after, I fainted in Cao Li's arms. When I woke up again, I was locked in a pigsty, my hands and feet tied with chains. After I struggled, Cao Li came in, changed his face, and forced me to drink some kind of medicine."
"Cao Li even grabbed my hair and told me that he had redeemed me. As long as I listened to him, he wouldn't do anything to me. But if I didn't, I would suffer a terrible fate. To force me to obey, Cao Li took me to see some inhuman beings that night. To be more precise, he tortured the women. He had chopped off their hands and feet and soaked them in a pool of medicine until they were neither dead nor alive. I knew he wanted to use them as hostages to coerce and bribe us, the new sisters, into obeying his arrangements."
"When I first saw those women, I was really scared and even vomited. After that, Cao Li grabbed my hair and took me back to the room, tied my hands and feet. In addition to coming to bring me food every day, he would force me to drink a bowl of medicine. I didn't know what those drugs were at first. It wasn't until a month later that I became addicted to them and I found out what they were. After I became addicted, if I didn't take the drugs, I would feel uncomfortable all over, very uncomfortable, as if I was being bitten by something. Cao Li came and told me that as long as I was obedient, he would give me the antidote. Otherwise, even if I wasn't beaten to death, I would be tortured to death by these drugs."
"I wanted to resist at first."